BOSTON (AP) — Former Blue Jays and current Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen didn’t just play for both teams in the same game — a first in Major League Baseball history.
He played for both teams in the same inning.
In a statistical oddity made possible by two of the quirkiest entities on Earth — the baseball rule book and the New England weather — Jansen became the only player ever to appear on both sides of a baseball box score when he took the field for Boston on Monday in the resumption of a rain-delayed game he started for Toronto in June, before he was traded to the Red Sox.
“I was surprised when I found out I was the first one to do it,” Jansen said after going 1 for 4 for Boston — plus part of another at-bat for Toronto — in the Blue Jays' 4-1 victory. “It’s cool, leaving a stamp like that on the game. It’s interesting, and it’s strange. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to have that.”
Playing for Toronto on June 26, Jansen fouled off the only pitch he saw from Boston starter Kutter Crawford in the second inning before the tarps were called out. On July 27, Jansen was traded from Toronto to Boston for three minor leaguers.
After the possibility of Jansen becoming a baseball first became a cause celebre around the sport, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said last week he would play Jansen when the suspended game resumed, saying “Let’s make history.”
“It was a very cool moment, just to be part of it,” Cora said Monday. “I don’t know if it’s going to happen again. It has to be kind of like the perfect storm for that to happen — starting with the storm. And I’m glad that everybody enjoyed it.”
Before the game resumed at 2:06 p.m. Monday — a delay of 65 days, 18 hours and 35 minutes, Red Sox media relations coordinator Daveson Perez announced the changes in the Fenway Park press box: “Pinch-hitting for Danny Jansen: Daulton Varsho. Defensive changes: Danny Jansen now at catcher.”
With Jansen behind the plate, Nick Pivetta struck Varsho out to complete the at-bat Jansen started. Then Jansen came up for the Red Sox with two outs in the bottom half of the frame, getting a nice cheer from a sparse makeup-game crowd, and hit a lazy liner to first base to end the inning.
“Building up until that point, maybe it was a bit strange,” Jansen said. “Once you stepped in the box and it was ‘Game on,’ I was just trying to stay present, stay locked in.”
Jansen’s wife and kids and some friends were there to see him claim his place in baseball's record books — or in the footnotes, at least. When they arrived, they saw his picture on the scoreboard wearing a Blue Jays cap.
“When I walked out there today, yeah, I saw myself up there, for sure,” Jansen said. “That was just kind of like, ‘Well, that’s where we’re at.’”
Before the first pitch, the umpires held an extended conversation at home with the coaches who brought out some of the weirdest lineup cards in baseball history. Blue Jays manager John Schneider said he was glad to see his former player, a lifetime backup and a career .222 hitter, get some attention.
“I think it’s cool for him to kind of go down in the record books as the first player to do that,” Schneider said. "I’ve known Jano forever, and it’s something cool that he can always kind of say he was the first at, and he’s good at weird stuff. Pretty cool for him.”
Jansen had a single in the fifth inning — Boston's first hit of the game. He had a flyout in the seventh and then came up with two outs in the ninth and a runner on second, but he struck out on a checked swing to end the game.
The 29-year-old right-handed hitter said he wore two jerseys in the game (three, if you count the Toronto one he wore in June). He will keep one for himself and send one to the Baseball Hall of Fame; an authenticator was on hand to tag all of Jansen’s equipment.
The Cooperstown shrine said it requested the scorecard from official scorer Bob Ellis, who also was working the game when it started in June.
“This scorecard will be a great tool to document and illustrate this history, showing Danny Jansen’s name on both teams,” Hall spokesman John Shestakofsky said.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Jimmy Golen, The Associated Press