Baseball Facts

The first baseball caps were made of straw.

So that's how they cheat - a microwaved baseball will fly farther than a frozen baseball.

The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches.

When pitched, the average Major League baseball rotates 15 times before being hit.

All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job!

The New York Yankees became the first MLB team to permanently adopt jersey numbers in 1929, though the Cleveland Indians beat them to the field by taking the diamond first on April 16, 1929.

The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches!

Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool! He changed it every 2 innings!

Bank robber John Dillinger played semi-professional baseball.

Babe Ruth wore No. 3 because he batted third.

Field of Dreams finished filming in 1988. The baseball diamond stretched across two Iowa farms, and both were supposed to go back to corn. Farmer Don Lansing left his half standing instead. His family had farmed that ground since 1906. He never charged a cent for admission or parking. By the film's 20th anniversary, about 65,000 strangers a year were coming to play catch. They still show up today.

In 2000, the New York Mets owed Bobby Bonilla $5.9 million. Instead of paying, they deferred it: $1.19 million per year from 2011 to 2035. The owner planned to invest the savings with his friend Bernie Madoff. Madoff turned out to be running the largest Ponzi scheme in history. The Mets are now paying Bonilla $29.8 million for a career that ended in 1999.

Karl Kissner was cleaning out his late grandfather's attic in Defiance, Ohio when he found a dusty box. Inside were roughly 700 baseball cards from 1910 - including 16 Ty Cobbs and a Honus Wagner - in near-perfect condition, untouched for a century. The collection was valued at $3 million.

$700 million. That's what Shohei Ohtani's contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers is worth - the richest deal in sports history. But right now, he takes home just $2 million per year. He deferred $680 million of his own salary so the Dodgers could use that money to sign other players and build a championship team around him.

Wrigley Field's scoreboard is a giant board that has loomed over the bleachers since 1937. No batted baseball has ever struck it, the Cubs say, not even Roberto Clemente's legendary blast. A golf ball did. On April 17, 1951, Sam Snead hit two balls off the grass at home plate, no tee. His first shot struck the board. His second cleared it clean. Frankie Frisch just stared. "Look, he didn't even wiggle."

Bo Jackson destroyed his left hip in the 1991 NFL playoffs and was told he would never play again. Doctors replaced the joint with a prosthetic hip. Eighteen months later he pinch-hit for the Chicago White Sox - took the first pitch for a strike, then drove the next one over the right-field wall. All 42,775 fans at Comiskey Park rose to their feet. He hit 16 home runs that season and won AL Comeback Player of the Year.

Tom Brady was drafted by the Montreal Expos as a catcher in the 1995 MLB Draft. The scout ranked him a late second-round talent but placed him in round 18 - they knew his Michigan football scholarship made him impossible to sign. Brady chose football and won seven Super Bowls. Asked where baseball would have led, Brady said: "I would be selling insurance."

Kurt Russell was a pro baseball player before he was a movie star. He spent three years in the minor leagues. In 1973, he was hitting .563 in just six games at Double-A with the California Angels. A baserunner came in high and hit him hard at second base, tearing his rotator cuff. His baseball days were over. Hollywood got him back for good.

Fenway Park's right-field bleachers are all green, except one. That single red seat marks a home run by Ted Williams. He hit it on June 9, 1946. The blast was officially marked at 502 feet, the longest homer ever hit inside the park. The ball crashed into a fan's straw hat before he ever saw it coming.

Randy Savage spent four seasons chasing a baseball career before he became Macho Man. He caught for the Cardinals and Reds organizations, playing 289 games. A collision at home plate wrecked his throwing shoulder. So he taught himself to throw left-handed. He hurled a ball against a wall up to a thousand times a day. Released in 1975, he turned to wrestling and became a legend.

Jesse Cole sold one season ticket in his first two months running the Savannah Bananas. He sold his house and slept on an air mattress in a duplex. One night a cockroach crawled across his face. Locals said he'd never sell another ticket. The opener sold out anyway. The team says every home game has since. This summer that meant an NFL stadium. Every game still sells out.