After catcher Danny Jansen became the first player in Major League Baseball history to play for both teams in the same game on Monday, he’ll take his place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. That’s despite his .222 lifetime batting average.
The Hall is expecting to receive the scoresheet from Monday’s Boston Red Sox-Toronto Blue Jays game from Bob Ellis, the official scorer for the suspended game, which took two months to complete.
“This scorecard will be a great tool to document and illustrate this history, showing Danny Jansen’s name on both teams,” Jon Shestakofsky, the vice president of communications for the Hall, told Sportico on Monday.
Jansen was at the plate for the Blue Jays on June 26 when the originally scheduled game was stopped because of severe weather at Fenway Park and ultimately suspended with no score in the second inning. He was facing an 0-1 count with one out when the storm stopped play.
On July 27, Jansen was traded to the Red Sox for three minor leaguers.
When the game resumed play on Monday (it was a prelude to the regularly scheduled tilt between the two teams), Jansen was behind the plate. Boston’s original catcher in that game, Reese McGuire, had been designated for assignment after the Red Sox obtained Jansen.
“At first, I didn’t really think of it that much,” Jansen told The Athletic about the possibility of playing for both teams before the game. “But now here we are, and it’s going to be a cool moment, especially when it’s all said and done, to look back on, and it’s such a strange thing that’s happening.”
The managers—John Schneider for the Blue Jays and Alex Cora for the Red Sox—had to make some unorthodox lineup moves for history to happen under MLB rules.
Jansen was catching for the Red Sox when Schneider subbed in Daulton Varsho to finish Jansen’s June 26 at-bat. Varsho struck out on three pitches and was officially credited in the box score with the out.
Cora hit Jansen seventh, when originally McGuire had batted ninth. In his first at-bat for Boston, Jansen lined out softly to first base.
Jansen’s name appears for both teams in the box score and on the official scorecard. And now that scorecard, thanks to Jansen, will have a Hall of Fame home in Cooperstown.
