I agree with Fred: This is the greatest hidden ball trick ever, and is now on my short list for best baseball stories ever.
On Aug. 31, 1987, Dave Bresnahan was the Michelangelo of potato sculpting. He sacrificed five fine tubers to the spud gods - death via peel - before settling on the correct shape. He drew red lines on the winner to simulate seams, only to see them erased by the potato's weeping. He wielded that peeler like a true artiste.Because in order to pull off the greatest prank in baseball history, Bresnahan needed to shape a potato like a baseball.
"I went to Williamsport (Pa.) this past weekend to celebrate the anniversary," Bresnahan says today from his Arizona home, 20 years after he ended his career as a catcher for the Double-A Williamsport Bills by feigning to pick off an opponent at third base by chucking a potato into left field, then using the real baseball to tag the runner when he scurried home - a hidden-ball trick to end all hidden-ball tricks.
"They gave away bobbleheads. I'm holding a potato. There's one on eBay right now. A couple sold for over a hundred bucks this week. For kicks and giggles, I looked up what Barry Bonds' was selling for, and I'm crushing him.
"I really don't understand."