When most people think of professional baseball, they certainly don’t think of little people. The average height of a MLB player today is 6’2”, but Eddie Gaedel was a mere 3’7”. He happens to hold the title of the “shortest player to appear in a MLB game.” He gained recognition in the second game of a St. Louis Browns doubleheader on August 19, 1951. The 26-year-old made a single plate appearance and was walked with four consecutive balls before being replaced by a pinch-runner at first base. His jersey, bearing the uniform number “⅛”, is displayed in the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Of Gaedel’s performance, St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck said in his 1962 autobiography, Veeck - As in Wreck, “He was, by golly, the best darn midget who ever played big-league ball. He was also the only one.” Veeck, a showman who enjoyed staging publicity stunts, found Gaedel through a booking agency and secretly drew up a contract signing him with the Browns on Friday, August 17, 1951. Veeck knew the contract wouldn’t be scrutinized until Monday, August 20, 1951. American League president Will Harridge said Veeck was making a mockery of the game and voided Gaedel’s contract the next day. Initially, Major League Baseball struck Gaedel from its record book — as if he had not been in the game — but he was re-listed a year later. Gaedel is one of only five Major League players who drew a walk in their only plate appearance and never played the field.
