Twins Porn 3/4/13

In last week’s Twins Porn, we looked at the only man to make it to The Show from short-lived Class E, second baseman George Thorogood, and a pitcher with one leg. Today, we’ll look at a baseball player-turned-actor and a third string catcher-turned-spy.

With the first round of the World Baseball Classic kicking off a couple of days ago, I started looking into birthplaces of MLB players.I wanted to see how global the American pastime really is.

After the U.S., the Dominican Republic is entrenched in second place with well over 500 past and current players from the island nation having made it to The Show. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Canada, Cuba and Mexico round out the top seven. If you wanted to have the top baseball-producing nations in a ten-team tournament, you could throw Japan, Australia and Panama in the mix, and end up with a pretty competitive tournament.

But what of the have-nots? Utility player Yan Gomes made his MLB debut last season as the first player born in Brazil. Al Cabrera was born in the Canary Islands, played one MLB game in 1913, and remains the only African-born player to make it to The Show. The infamous Al Campanis played seven games for the Brooklyn Dodgers and remains the only player born in Greece. Same goes for John Hattig of Guam, Tom Mastny of Indonesia, Danny Graves of Vietnam, Bobby Chouinard of the Philippines, Craig Stansberry of Saudi Arabia, and Robin Jennings of Singapore.

Of all the one-hit wonder nations listed for MLB players, though, my favorite has to be the dude who was born at sea, somewhere in the Atlantic: Ed Porray. Porray started three games for the Buffalo Buffeds in 1914, but played several years in the minors for teams such as the Alabany Babies and Pittsburgh Filipinos. He’s also rumored to have been a co-writer of the 1918 Mae West hit song, “Everybody Shimmies Now.”

Twenty-eight nations sent teams to this year’s World Baseball Classic, including the qualifying round, making this the most-attended WBC yet. We’ve had a guy who was born at sea make it to The Show, and even the Austro-Hungarian Empire had four players suit up in the Majors. Oddly, Haiti, which shares an island with the Dominicans has yet to produce a MLB player.

Scott Patterson Played Baseball

Patterson played Luke on the show Gilmore Girls. He was a romantic interest and friend on the show, had that rugged thing going for him, was a hard nut to crack, and didn’t like change…at least that’s what my chick says. I don’t care to find out any more about Scott Patterson, Gilmore Girls Stud.

Scott Patterson the pitcher, though, went to Rutgers then pitched in the minors for seven seasons in the 80s for the Braves and Yankees. He wasn’t very good: he walked too many batters and gave up too many hits without a lot of strikeouts. He was converted to a reliever his last three seasons, but it didn’t seem to help much. A few years later, he played a pitcher in the classic film, “Little Big League.”

Patterson is in some movie called “Meth Head” that’s coming out in a few days. It’s the directorial debut of someone named Jane Clark who has previously played nurses in a number of television shows. That’s the hot guy from Gilmore Girls at the top of this post.

Moe Berg was a Spy
Berg made it to the Majors as a shortstop for the Brooklyn Robins then spent the better part of 15 seasons as a backup catcher for the White Sox, Cleveland, Senators and Red Sox. He was an excellent defensive player with a career .243 BA and six home runs. He played briefly for the Minneapolis Millers in 1924.

Berg managed to balance playing professional baseball with a career as a lawyer in the late 20s and was a successful quiz show contestant in the 30s. At the outbreak of World War II, he began working for the US government and eventually took a position as a Paramilitary Operations Officer with the OSS. He parachuted into Yugoslavia,kidnapped Italian rocket scientists, and was tasked with determining whether or not the Nazis were close to developing an atomic bomb. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, but rejected it.

After the war, Berg was offered coaching positions with the White Sox and Red Sox, but rejected those, too. In fact, Berg worked very little over the course of the rest of his life, living off of siblings until his death in 1972. When criticized for not fully utilizing his intellectual abilities—Berg studied seven languages and devoured up to ten newspapers a day—he replied, “I’d rather be a ballplayer than a justice on the US Supreme Court.”

This Week’s Number: 4
That’s the number of times Robby Thompson was caught stealing in a 1986 game, a record. In fairness to Thompson, it was a 12-inning game.

This Week’s Fact:
Three of ten first-time ballot inductees into the Hall of Fame since 2000 played for the Twins: Kirby Puckett and Dave Winfield in 2001, and Paul Molitor in 2004.

What I Did This Week: I did like eight loads of laundry over at my mom’s house and watched some remodeling show starring Vanilla Ice for four straight hours. I also ate a ton of pulled pork and saw some electronica show at Icehouse.

Here’s a music video some weirdo made of Scott Patterson in “Little Big League”:

With the World Baseball Classic underway, that’s what I’ll be focusing on this week. Stay warm.

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