E34: Kitchen Sink II: Back-to-Back No Hitters, Ultimate Grand Slams, the Eddie Waitkus Shooting & More

A movie cast quietly buying a minor league baseball team sounds like a punchline, until you hear the name Richmond Flying Mummies and realize baseball is still the best sport for pure, delightful weirdness. We start there, digging into why the team name exists, how fans show up for the spectacle, and what this kind of ownership says about the community heartbeat of minor league baseball.

Then we shift from quirky baseball culture to a pitching feat that feels impossible in any era: back-to-back no-hitters. We break down what counts as a no-hitter versus a perfect game, why control is not always the deciding factor, and how Johnny Vander Meer ends up owning a record that may never be touched. Along the way, we add bonus baseball history and trivia, including a look at the Boston Bees and the kind of odd team naming debates that would never fly today.

From there, we open the baseball dictionary for a modern term with a very exact meaning: the ultimate grand slam. We explain the rule clearly, why it is so rare, and why it hits fans like a lightning bolt when it happens. We also detour into a nostalgia story that turns into an accidental collectible, before closing with a true-crime-tinged chapter on Eddie Waitkus and one of the earliest notorious cases of celebrity stalking in American sports.

If you like baseball history, smart trivia, and stories you cannot wait to repeat, hit play, subscribe, and share the show with a friend, then tell us which moment surprised you most.

Email us at fungosandfastballs@gmail.com

Transcript

Kitchen Sink Episode Setup

Jerry 0:00

Hello, listeners, and welcome to Fungoes and Fastballs. Now I've heard from some of our listeners, and one of our most popular episodes uh over our run was the kitchen sink episode. Now that was a mixture of small stories, fun facts, none of which individually would carry a whole episode. But when you put them together, they just make a wonderful pastiche. A pastiche? Pastiche. Well, Brooke. Hey hi. Hey everybody.

Brooke 0:28

You got a new shirt on today. Is this a baseball shirt? No, no. I've stra oh, my hat. I'm gonna do it with my hat on. I have strayed, let's see if you can see this.

Jerry 0:39

People watching.

Brooke 0:41

Sorry, a great shirt. We just came back from a trip to New Jersey to see family. We spent a week at the Jersey Shore, Long Beach Island. If any listeners are out there spend time there, let us know. And right near my uncle's house is a bait and tackle shop, and it is named Jingles. Jingles bait and tackle. Jingles bait and tackle tackle.

Jerry 1:04

Great name. Can we get them as a sponsor? I'll have to fly back. Since you're showing their merch.

Brooke 1:10

I just couldn't resist the shirt. I mean, when when do you ever have a bait and tackle shop that says jingles bait and tackle? Has something big on the back also. No, no, we're we might we're not really fishermen or anglers. They might all be named jingles. That's a good point. But I just I love the name. So I said I gotta get a t-shirt with this on it. Back to your original question, pastiche. It's like Pastiche, yes, pastiche.

Jerry 1:32

Yes, it's like a melange. It's like it's like a um uh gumbo, it's like a hodgepodge, if you will.

Brooke 1:38

Oh, that word I understand. I'm about to put my music in here, my uh fancy music.

Jerry 1:43

So, with that in mind, we present to you Kitchen Sink 2, Electric Boogaloo. Some wonderful topics ahead.

Brooke 1:51

Or the kitchen sink strikes back.

Jerry 1:54

Yes. Or kitchen sink two. This time it's personal.

Brooke 1:58

Ah, how about finding the kitchen sink? The return of the kitchen sink. Well, we'll figure out a good name. The kitchen sinks like Alien.

Jerry 2:08

Can we start? Yes, go ahead. Hello and welcome to Fungos and Fastballs, the podcast of baseball history and trivia. I'm your host, Jerry Dines. Let's jump into today's episode.

Trivia Question And Topic Preview

Jerry 2:22

But first, before we start with the Kitchen Sinks pastiche, we have our trivia question. At 36 years and 20 days old, who was the youngest player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Stick around for the answer later on. Well, as I mentioned, a lot packed into this one. First, the cast of a movie buys a minor league team. Then the only player to uh pitch back-to-back no-hitters. We look into the baseball dictionary of what an ultimate grand slam is. And then finally, when fandom goes awry, the story of Eddie Waitgis and early celebrity stalking. Hmm. Let's open with movies and baseball,

Napoleon Dynamite Buys A Team

Jerry 3:01

though. I love the story from last month, if you didn't hear it. The cast of Napoleon Dynamite brought a minor league baseball team. Yes, John Heater, who plays Napoleon. Ephraim Ramirez plays Pedro and John Grease, who's the football throwing Uncle Rico. Also, it gets a little creepy in the White Lotus uh episodes with Jennifer Coolidge's husband. They were part of a group that purchased the minor league team from Richmond, Indiana. What was that team's name? This is the best part. The Richmond Flying Mummies. What a great name. That is. Do you like Napoleon Dynamite Brook?

Brooke 3:34

I do. I do. It's definitely a movie that grows on you after multiple viewings. I mean, there are some just key moments with the tater tots sticking them in his pants.

Jerry 3:43

And a liger, the perfect animal.

Brooke 3:47

This is it all these little clips. Yeah. It's it's a hilarious movie.

Jerry 3:51

It is. It's a it's definitely a slow burner. I kind of like we I I compared it to the uh baseball movie Ephis a few episodes back. And if you haven't seen that, go watch that. Great.

Brooke 3:59

Yeah, good.

Jerry 4:00

Put it on our list. We're gonna watch this one again. Put it on the list. So, yes, the three of them, along with a few other investors, brought bought the Richmond Flying Mummies. I want to buy our minor league team. Yeah, let's do it with our podcast money. I mean, a series of group of investors, right.

Brooke 4:15

No problem.

Jerry 4:16

Yeah.

Brooke 4:17

Tell me more about this team name.

Jerry 4:19

Well, apparently Richmond, I did not know this, maybe a few did, is the mummy capital of the Midwest, with not one but two Egyptian mummies uh on display. Uh where does the flying part come from? Well, apparently the Wright brothers, before moving to Dayton, Ohio, lived lived in in Richmond, Indiana. Uh fun fact, in fact, uh fun fact, fun fact, the mascot is named Wilbur after Wilbur Wright, and he's a rooster wrapped in a mummy outfit uh whose goal is to learn to fly.

Brooke 4:48

Well, opening night when they after they purchased it, Efren wore the mascot costume. There's a picture of him at the end, and he took the hat off the head off, and his hair is just soaped to his head. Soaked to it. And I hear possibly during Halloween they may be revealing updated mascots. No, don't get rid of Wilbur. Just saying, just saying. I don't know if you've ever seen their uh uniforms. Now have you seen the uniforms? Yes. And why did they want to buy this team? Well, I read that Heater's wife, Kirsten, she grew up in a military family, moved a lot, and she said that when every time they moved, they would find the local baseball team. And it really meant a lot to her to support these these smaller teams, and I guess go figure someone reached out to them.

Jerry 5:42

Oddly, none of them lived or grew up near Richmond. It's just a fun decision, and fun it is. Uh, fans have naturally just been showing up in vote for Pedro t-shirts, costumes. The three owners even showed up for a screening of Napoleon Dynamite. I gotta get me some some flying mummies gear. Maybe it's on the way. What?

Brooke 6:02

Who is it? I'm just saying.

Jerry 6:04

Where?

Brooke 6:05

In the mail. Is it on my my table? Oh, in the mail. It hasn't come yet. We'll have to reveal it on a future episode.

Jerry 6:10

Exactly, exactly. We'll do a call back. So a fun story to start. Now I

Back To Back No Hitters

Jerry 6:15

suppose we could have asked our next topic as a trivia question, but we already had one. Who's the only person to throw two consecutive no-hitters? Uh 327 no-hitters have been achieved in Major League Baseball history. Now they're no hitters, not perfect games, far less than that.

Brooke 6:33

Okay. So we I know we did this at a recent episode. A no-hitter, let's define this again. No bat ball contact, or you can, but if it's a pop fly, that's still okay as a no-hitter.

Jerry 6:48

Yeah, I mean, no baseball hits. So the bat can connect with a ball, but it cannot lead to you getting on base. On base. Now, in a no-hitter, you can get on to base by walk's errors being hit by balls. Those things cannot occur during a perfect game. No one can get on base. But only one pitcher has two back-to-back, and that was Johnny Vandermeer, the Dutch master. Oh, I love that nickname. Yeah. The left-hander, he played primarily for the Cincinnati Reds, a couple of final seasons with the Cubs and then Indians. First on June 11th against the Boston Bees. And then four days later, on June 15th, he threw another against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Brooke 7:29

Well, I've got some trivia to share about this Boston Bees.

Jerry 7:33

The Boston Bees.

Brooke 7:34

Now it's B-E-E-S. B E's, like the insects. Yes. And of course, we've talked about this before, one of the uh many past names of the Atlanta Braves. That's right. Now, I did look up look this up because I found the B to be a very fascinating baseball mascot. And I wanted to explain to everyone. So when the Boston Braves, uh before in 1936, they were new owners that took over, and they wanted a fresh start, and literally a new name. So they threw it open to all the fans, send in your ideas. Over thirteen thousand entries poured in and they whittled it down to seven. Some of the rejects, you ready? Yeah. The pilgrims.

Jerry 8:17

The pilgrims make sense, yeah.

Brooke 8:18

Puritans. The Minutemen. You know, all these Boston type names, very New England. But then there were some weird ones. The aspirins, the hamburgers, the lemons, because they didn't have a very good season before this, even the zippers.

Jerry 8:35

The boss the the Boston zippers.

Brooke 8:37

Boston zippers. Yeah.

Jerry 8:39

They should have a very easy uniform design, a lot of zippers. Boston aspirins, that's interesting too.

Brooke 8:44

I think because again, they were so bad everyone was, you know, needing needing aspirin for their headaches. But in the end, one name buzzed past the rest, and that was the bees, and it grabbed over half the votes. The other some of the other ones were the bluebirds and the beacons and the colonials, those trailed behind. And then you had the bulldogs, the blues, and the bulls. They each got one vote each. Of course, the press, who was the ultimate chooser of this name, they had just had a field day with it because the sporting news couldn't resist Boston Club given new honey of a name, hoping for a sweet flow of fans through the turnstiles. So they they do say that the press may have picked the bees because it is the shortest of all of the names, and so leaves more room for headlines.

Jerry 9:35

Appear on the headlines.

Brooke 9:36

Exactly. Exactly. So there's your history of the bees.

Jerry 9:38

Yeah, very interesting. It's a shame the insect doesn't succeed more as a team name. I mean, you got the Charlotte Hornets in basketball.

Brooke 9:45

That's true.

Jerry 9:45

That's we need we need more, you know, the spiders?

Brooke 9:47

No, no spiders anywhere.

Jerry 9:49

The uh maybe when they expand, the Oklahoma City Mosquitoes, right? So but back to Vandermeer. Well, again, he he pitched one against the the Bees four days later against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Uh bit of an unlikely thrower to achieve this. Uh he was a bit wild, less control. He was only 23, though, at the start of the 1938 season. A year after he was called up, he went three and four, went right back to the minors. Now, against the Bees, he walked three, struck out four. It was a three-nothing victory. Against the Dodgers, he actually walked eight and struck out four. So not exactly commanding stuff. And like so many no-hitters, Vandermeer definitely relied on some nice plays by his teammates. But at the end of the day, or days, he threw back-to-back no-hitters, and would often be called double no-hit afterward. And this is probably a record that will never be broken, uh, because three h no-hitters seems very, very unlikely. Trivia. Uh the game against the Dodgers was the first night game ever to be held at Brooklyn's Ebbettes Fields at the Dodgers' home stadium at the time. And the pregame show at the time was an exhibition by the 1936 Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owen. Appearance by Babe Ruth, who had congratulated Vandermeer for the last no-hitter against the Bees, by saying, you know, nice going, kid. I can see the babe saying that.

Brooke 11:09

Although the first night game ever took place on May 24th, 1935 in Cincinnati's Crosley Field with the Reds versus the Phillies, and that took place in front of twenty over 20,000 fans.

Jerry 11:23

Yeah, a new era was born there. That's great trivia, and I will counter with my own trivia alert for that May 24th game that Brooke mentioned, President Franklin Delanore Roosevelt threw a ceremonial switch in the White House to turn on the lights in Cincinnati. Now, more trivia, Vandermeer's first no-hitter was actually almost broken up in the fourth as Boston Bees center fielder Vince DiMaggio, brother of Joe and Dom, hit a line drive off Vandermeer's glove that luckily was deflected to third baseman Lee Riggs, and he was able to throw to first, get DiMaggio out. Vince actually would become Vandermeer's teammate a year later when he moved to the Reds. Vandermeer also otherwise had a very solid career, a four-time All-Star. He led the National League in strikeouts three times, helps the helped the Reds to a World Series in 1940. He's in the Reds Hall of Fame. And if you visit Cooperstown, you can see a baseball from the first no-hitter that he threw and a ticket stub from the second.

What Makes An Ultimate Grand Slam

Jerry 12:25

And now we open the old baseball lexicon to discuss a term, the ultimate grand slam. Now, grand slams are pretty great to begin with. I mean, clearing the whole bases and scoring four runs with a homer, they're pretty they're pretty great. How can you make it more ultimate? Now, I have to, you know, point out, of course, that, you know, you can't have an inside the park grand slam that doesn't have to go over the fence, as you know. But an ultimate grand slam is a walk-off grand slam at the end of the game when the team is trailing in the ninth or extra innings by exactly three runs. So essentially the grand slam lifts you up four runs and you win by one run. Surprisingly, it's only happened 34 times in Major League Baseball history since 1910.

Brooke 13:13

I think they just needed another stat to calculate.

Jerry 13:17

But only 34 times. Why are we bringing this up now? Why are we, Jerry? Well, if you didn't hear about it, we had one this season. Oh. On June 10th, rookie Bryce Eldridge of the San Francisco Giants. They haven't had many high points this season, but this is one of them. He had an ultimate grand slam to beat the Nationals 11 to 10.

The Mystery Of The Reggie Bar

Jerry 13:37

And before we get to our last topic, listeners have heard me on several episodes uh express my nostalgia for the Reggie Bar, a wonderful gemish of chocolate caramel, and peanuts, uh, which first came out when I was 10 in 1978. Dating myself. Well, my wonderful wife got me a little present. I want to tell folks about it, Brooke.

Brooke 14:03

That's on it. Well, although now I gotta eat this, hold on. Although my love language is not receiving gifts, I do love to give gifts. And Jerry had mentioned it one time. He wanted to get Reggie bars. He said he looked on Amazon. They were there, that they were there, anymore. And then I went and looked and they were not there, and he said, Ah, they're not there, to no avail. So I went hunting and I saw on eBay a box of Reggie bars. And being the wonderful wife that I am and liking to give gifts, I said, I'm I'm gonna get this for him. So a clue few clicks, and that was mine. Well So I heard Reggie bars were coming.

Jerry 14:45

Yes. I got excited. I'm I'm feeling my mouth is watering right now.

Brooke 14:49

So did I. Okay. So then it took forever. The box finally arrived. It's the same day Jerry and I were having lunch. I grabbed it out of the mailbox. Oddly, it was a quite small box, so like the size that you'd put a baseball in. And I'm thinking, did I order a baseball? What's isn't this the Reggie Bar? And we opened it up at lunch and it was one Reggie Bar. Where is it?

Jerry 15:13

I have it right here, actually. One Reggie Bar if you're watching on YouTube. Yes. And I imagine Now you may wonder why the mouth watering Jerry hasn't already chowed it down.

Brooke 15:26

Okay. So I first of all immediately pulled up eBay because I thought I was buying a box and I wasn't. And in the little fine print, bro. It said, yeah, one. That now you can buy boxes, but they don't have any reggie bars in them. So I don't know who's keeping these boxes for and empty wrappers. And yeah, and empty wrappers. Okay, so needless to say, I'm reading the fine print now, and it says on there, do not eat this item. It is over 30 years old.

Jerry 15:53

Yes. And in fact, the new Reggie bars that were on Amazon and weren't original Clarks, you can see this is an original Clark Reggie bar, maybe from the late 70s, early 80s. So let's let's hope so. Hey, it's going on my shelf.

Brooke 16:08

That's it. Nice and high. I hope some future grandchild doesn't one day.

Jerry 16:12

Yes, we'll have to watch grandchildren, future grandchildren, exactly.

Brooke 16:16

And the fact that it sat in my car for a week while we went away, I don't, you know.

Jerry 16:19

So I can't eat it though, but it was a very thoughtful gift. Glad you like it.

Eddie Waitkus And Early Stalking

Jerry 16:25

Well, our final topic today is about Eddie Waitgis. The first baseman who played 11 seasons in the 1940s and 50s for the Cubs, Phillies, and Orioles. Only 24 homers, only a two-star, two, uh two-time All-Star. Why do we mention him? Well, it could be because, trivia alert, uh early in the 1940s in the Pacific Coast League in 1942, he actually was used as a double for Gary Cooper in the movie The Pride of the Yankees. Gary Cooper was playing Lou Gehrig and they needed someone to double for the baseball seams. And, you know, Wacus, you know, looked like he had the moves. Did you watch that movie while I was away? No, no. I'm I'm saving that for my mega baseball movie marathon, 30 hours, 30 hours. I'd actually like to watch it with you.

Brooke 17:12

So you'd like to watch it? Yeah, I really would. I don't know enough about Lou Gehrig. Yeah, yeah. We should do an episode on him. We should do an everything episode on him.

Jerry 17:20

We will. Well, yeah, you know, and and and Wakis should be perhaps remembered more for his valor during World War II in the Pacific Theater. He joined the army right after his Cubs debuted and would be awarded four bronze stars. But no. Wakis is here today in our episode because he is the focus of one of the earliest cases of criminal stalking. In 1949, when played for the Cubs, Wakis became the focus of an obsessed fan, Ruth Ann Steinhagen. Steinhagen. Ruth Ann Steinhagen. Wakis had never even met Steinhagen, but she attended all the Cubs games and would wait for him outside the clubhouse just to get a glimpse of him. It was later discovered her bedroom was a shrine to Wakis, with hundreds of photos, newspaper clippings. She even started studying Lithuanian because his family was of Lithuanian immigrants. She told the police later she liked Wakis because, quote, he was the best of anybody in the world, and had dreamt about him saying, If I can't have him, nobody else can. So after Wakis was traded to the Phillies in 1949, Ruth Ann checked into Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel under an assumed name, left a note at the desk for him to come to her room for an urgent matter. I didn't quite know what that was, but he went to the room, and the 19-year-old Steinhagen shot him with a 22 caliber rifle, reportedly saying, For two years you've been bothering me, and now you're going to die, yake. She called the desk to report the shooting, and when staff arrived, she was cradling his head in her lap. Nearly uh Wakis nearly died during the surgery. The bullet was successfully removed from his lung. Steinagan was arrested, never went to trial. She was committed for three years to a state hospital in Illinois. What's incredible about this is Eddie Wakis would return to play baseball the very next season in 1950 as part of the Phillies Whiz Kids. We'll do a first pitch on them one day. Wait, but that was that their name, the WizKids?

Brooke 19:27

Or that was their nickname.

Jerry 19:34

There's a ton of them. But the Whiz Kids won the National League pennant that year. And Wakis actually led the team a year after shooting in scoring with 102 runs. He would play in the 1950 World Series, where the Yankees would sweep his Phillies. Wakis was even named the Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year, would play for five more seasons with the Phillies and Orioles. Now, fans of film, and we've talked a few of them today, would see, we'll see these similarities in Bernard Malamud's novel and subsequent Robert Redford film, The Natural, where the main character Roy Hobbes gets shot early in his career. Now, Malamud probably got some inspiration for Wakeus' story. It is actually possible it could have been another Cub shooting, Billy Jurgis in 1932, who got shot by his ex-girlfriend. That may have been the inspiration for Roy Hobbes' fate.

Brooke 20:25

We saw that a couple years ago, but that is definitely a movie we have to review at some time.

Jerry 20:30

Yeah, I you know, some people debate, you know, was this the inspiration for the original novel, Bernard Malamud? Malamud was uh didn't like discussing his literary sources. He passed away in 1986, so the mystery will remain.

Trivia Answer And Final Wrap

Jerry 20:44

Now, before we go, I want to get back to that trivia question. At 36 years and 20 days old, who was the youngest player inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame? Uh well, since one has to wait five years after retirement to be potentially elected, it would have to be have uh have been a player with a uh relatively short, phenomenal career who retired early. And indeed, that's who this player is. The answer? Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax, who retired at age 30, but whose brilliant 12-season career would include a seven-time All-Star selection, three-time Cy Young, and four World Series championships. And speaking of the Baseball Hall of Fame, coming up this Thursday, a special bonus episode of Fungos and Fastballs will be episode 35, discussing this year's three inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Uh, they'll all go in Sunday, July 26th in Cooperstown. Now, thanks always to Brooke, my producer. You're welcome. And shout out especially to our listeners around the country, like our regulars in Wilmington, Delaware. We appreciate you. Uh, and any of our listeners can email us at fungos and and fastballs at gmail.com uh for comments, accolades, uh, even show ideas, maybe just to say hi. And we're always happy you're listening or watching. Uh thanks for joining us, and don't forget to subscribe. Heading back to the locker room, this is Jerry Dines and Fungos and Fastballs.