The Characters of the Game

The Clown Prince of Baseball: Max Patkin

Just as in many professional sports, there are a small percentage of players that are character-like on the field. Football has it's mean guy, monster-like players that would scare anyone if their actions were performed anywhere off the field. Basketball is known for players that have flair, covered in tattoos, often wearing what's trendy, and in the 1990's, rapping in music videos. Baseball on the other hand, has had a mixture of these types, but a whole other class of characters that is seldom seen in the other sports. Quirky. Whether it's the players, managers, or someone just affiliated with the club in some sort of extraneous way, it seems like every team has at least one person that boosts the team's "weird" credentials.

I give you a list of the top ten characters of baseball over the years.

1. Max Patkin: For 51 years Patkin was crowned "The Clown Prince of Baseball" for his antics as a minor league player, barnstormer, and genuine entertainer after his baseball career was over. A member of the United States Navy during World War II, while pitching for a service team, Patkin allowed a homerun to the legendary Joe DiMaggio. Rather than get angry and forgetting about it, Patkin threw his glove down and started to run the bases behind DiMaggio.

After his career ended, he performed over 4,000 times and never missed a scheduled performance. He wore a baggy uniform with a question mark as his player number and made funny faces to entertain the crowd. His fame as a minor league clown was solidified when he appeared in the baseball movie Bull Durham as himself.

2. Al "The Mad Hungarian" Hrabosky: Hrabosky used theatrics to intimidate the opposing hitters of the team. Facing towards second base, he would vigorously rub down the ball while huffing and puffing. Then he would slam the ball into his mitt, turn around, and have the expression of an angry man. He often yelled on the field and stare down hitters for extended periods of time before throwing a pitch. Off the field he would go shirtless during team batting practices.

3. Rube Waddell: During the offseason, Waddell would wrestle alligators. If that doesn't say enough about him, he was even more peculiar during the season. On multiple occasions he would wave his teammates off the field and tell them he would be striking out the side, often following through on his claim. During games, he was known to leave the stadium when he heard the sirens of passing fire trucks (it was rumored he would chase after them). Opponents would sometimes distract him with "shiny objects" and puppies during the game. His attention was always splintered in multiple directions. Despite all this, he was voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

4. Yogi Berra: Perhaps the most quotable player in baseball history, his quotes were termed as "Yogiisms". Another Hall of Famer, Yogi was a great player on the field, but with his words, he often dumbfounded those around him. It's still not one hundred percent known if his quotes are created on the spur of the moment or if he pre-planned them. It's also not known if they are intentionally so confusing. Here is a small sample of his past quotes:

-"It's deja vu all over again." - "You can observe a lot by watching." - "Always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise they won't go to yours." - "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." - "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." - "I always thought that record would stand until it was broken."

5. Turk Wendell: Perhaps the most superstitious athlete of all time, Wendell officially earned this title from Men's Fitness magazine. During his 11-year career, he would jump over the foul lines, chew black licorice while on the mound, drawn three crosses in the dirt before starting each inning, slamming down the rosin bag as hard as he can every time he used it, and brush his teeth in the dugout in between innings. While signing a contract with the New York Mets, he made them change their offer of $10 million a year to $9,999,999.99 in honor of his uniform number, 99. A hunter during the offseason, Wendell wore a necklace made from the claws and teeth of the animals he hunted.

6. Wade Boggs: Though being known as one of the purest hitters of his generation, Boggs was a slave to routine. One of his most widely known routines was that he had to eat a whole friend chicken before each game (he played in 2,440 regular season games). What many fans didn't know was he had to take 150 grounders during practice. No more. No less. He also would scratch the word "chai" into the dirt before every at-bat (the word means "life" in Hebrew). He would have to take batting practice at exactly 5:17pm and at 7:17pm do his sprints before every night game. Boggs was also known for excessively drinking beer while his team traveled on road trips.

7. Mark Fidrych: Known for his bird-like movements, Fidrych earned the nickname "The Bird". While pitching, he would often talk to the baseball, be seen strolling around the mound, and would even toss a new ball back to the umpire because he felt the ball had "hits" in it. In a OCD-ish sort of a way, he would often smooth the mound with his own bare hands to get rid of the cleat marks of opposing pitchers.

8. Nyger Morgan: Perhaps quirky or perhaps sad, no one could ever fully figure out if Morgan is the victim of multiple personalities. Often calling himself Tony Plush, which would in itself not be too alarming, he once got a game-winning base hit and couldn't recall it minutes later during a postgame interview. He would often thrown up a "T" for Tony, imitate other famous athletes motions, and he would wear a uniform a couple of sizes too big because he felt Tony Plush was a bigger man than he was.

9. Kevin Rhomberg: Despite only playing 41 games in his Major League career, Rhomberg was perhaps the most tactile player to ever play. He had the weird obsession to touch anyone back that touched him and took this "tag" like obsession to a new high. Once tagged with a baseball by teammate Brook Jacoby during a game, Jacoby threw the ball out of the stadium, leading to Rhomberg leaving the stadium and searching for the ball for two hours before finally finding it. Whenever he was tagged out, he would touch the player back instantly. In a game against the New York Yankees, the umpire had to stop the game and warn the Yankees to stop touching Rhomberg because he would run after each player. Once touched on the toe by teammate Rick Sutcliffe while he was in a bathroom stall, Rhomberg ran out of the stall to touch everyone in the clubhouse since he wasn't aware of who touched him. In extreme scenarios, he would mail a letter to a player and write in the letter than receiving the letter constitutes as a "touch", if he couldn't touch the player who touched him during the game.

10. Charlie Kerfeld: Known as the Astros' oddball in the 1980's, Kerfeld demanded that his contract include 37 boxes of orange Jell-O as part of his compensation for playing. A fan of the cartoon series, The Jetsons, Kerfeld had to wear the same Jetsons shirt under his jersey every game. Many times while sitting out in the bullpen, he would wear a Coneheads cone on his head with teammates Larry Anderson and Dave Smith. He was also quoted as once saying that he wanted to team up with Hulk Hogan, Brian Bosworth, and Charles Barkley against the Four Horsemen and would often say he was pondering a career in wrestling, Arena Football, or as a brain surgeon after the end of his baseball career.