By Penny Bancroft
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Stephen Wayne Yeager (born November 24, 1948) is an American former professional baseball catcher. Yeager spent 14 of the 15 seasons of his Major League Baseball career, from 1972 through 1985, with the Los Angeles Dodgers. His last year, 1986, he played for the Seattle Mariners. From 2012 to 2018, Yeager was the catching coach for the Dodgers. He was co-MVP of the 1981 World Series.
Yeager was born in Huntington, West Virginia. He attended Meadowdale High School in Dayton, Ohio. Yeager hit two grand slams in a single game while playing for Meadowdale.
He is the cousin of the late test pilot Chuck Yeager. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley was the best man at his wedding to local rock musician Gloria Giaone. Yeager is Jewish, having converted to Judaism when his career was over. He later moved to Granada Hills, California.
In 1976, Yeager was injured when teammate Bill Russell‘s bat shattered as he hit a ground ball and a large, jagged piece from the heavy end of the bat slammed into the throat of Yeager, who was in the on-deck circle. The wood hit him in the neck and pierced his esophagus, necessitating surgery. After the incident, at Yeager’s urging Dodger trainer Bill Buhler invented and patented a device that hangs from the catcher’s mask to protect the throat. It was soon worn by most catchers throughout the Majors and other leagues.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Zachary Taylor (12th U.S. president) –
- Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett (novelist) –
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (artist) –
- Scott Joplin (pianist, King of Ragtime) –
- Cathleen Nesbitt (actress) –
- Garson Kanin (playwright) –
- Steve Yeager (baseball player) –
- Brad Sherwood (comedian) –
- Colin Hanks (actor) –
- Katherine Heigl (actress) –
Died
- Lee Harvey Oswald (suspected assassin of President John F. Kennedy) –
- Freddie Mercury (musician) –
- John Rawls (leading figure in political philosophy and legal theory) –
- Warren Spahn (American baseball player) –
- Pat Morita (actor) –
Events
- The transit of Venus was first observed–
- Justus Falckner became the first Lutheran pastor ordained in America (Philadelphia)–
- Charles Darwin’s controversial Origin of Species published–
- First national Thanksgiving celebration–
- Joseph Glidden granted patent for barbed wire fencing–
- Cape Breton Railway opened, Nova Scotia–
- Ruth Nichols became the first woman to fly a transcontinental flight–
- Lee Harvey Oswald, accused by Dallas police of assassinating President Kennedy, was shot and killed by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas municipal building while in police custody–
- 239-lb. yellowfin tuna caught off Catalina Island, California–
- 14.04-pound saugeye caught, Antrim Lake, Ohio–
Weather
- In what became known as the “Battle Above the Clouds,” the Union army, aided by clouds obscuring the battlefield, was victorious at Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
