Setting Baseball’s 'Altitude Record'
An IBWAA writer examines a publicity stunt turned into a record
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . One of the most hilarious stunts that can be pulled off in a baseball game is the “hidden ball” trick. There are many varieties of the trick, depending on which base the play is pulled off. Unofficially, the trick has been pulled off less than three hundred times in more than 150 years of Major League Baseball history. Marty Barrett, an infielder primarily with the Boston Red Sox, was considered the “master” of the hidden ball trick, pulling the trick off multiple times.
. . . One of the most entertaining hidden ball tricks was pulled off in the minor leagues in August 1987. Minor league catcher Dave Bresnahan used a specially-made catcher mitt that allowed him to conceal a peeled potato, and when a runner attempted to steal third, he launched the potato down the third base line, sending the runner running toward home plate, where Bresnahan was waiting with the ball. The umpire ruled that using a foreign object to deceive was illegal and awarded the runner home plate.
Leading Off
Setting Baseball’s ‘Altitude Record’
By Paul Jackson
Late November is an aimless time. The Series is over (and picked over) and the winter meetings are still a few weeks away. Since we have a moment, let’s look back to 1938, when some off-duty ballplayers set out to play catch from the opposite ends of a skyscraper.
As Cleveland’s fill-in third-string catcher, Hank Helf saw virtually no action, getting in just six games and taking only 13 at-bats that season. But on a clear summer morning, he found himself in the right place with the right skill set.
On August 20, 1938, before the day’s game against the White Sox, Helf was rounded up with the Indians’ two other catchers and two retired catchers now on the coaching staff. The five men were told they were needed downtown. They asked why.
“To catch a ball tossed off a building for a publicity stunt.”
The building was Terminal Tower in Cleveland, Ohio. When it was completed in 1927, at 770 feet, Terminal Tower was the second-tallest building in North America. In 1938 it remained the tallest building in the United States outside of New York.
The five backstops were to star in a novelty stunt arranged by the Chamber of Commerce’s “Come to Cleveland” committee. One of their teammates would ascend to the top of the tower structure and throw twelve baseballs down to a grassy plaza far below. A caught ball would obliterate the previous record, set by another catcher, Gabby Street, in 1908, who caught a ball thrown from the observation windows of the Washington Monument, 504 feet above his head.
10,000 people gathered around the cordoned-off drop zone to watch, and thousands more pressed against the office windows of the Higbee Co. building and the Hotel Cleveland, where several White Sox gathered on a balcony and offered colorful “encouragement” to their comrades below.
The catchers were not in uniform, but they had brought their own catching mitts. Each man was issued a metal mining helmet for some extra protection. “Cleveland scientists” expected the dropped balls to reach speeds of 138 miles an hour (or 202 feet per second) on their descent from the 52nd floor of the tower. In reality, the 52nd floor was more of a ledge, at the end of eight flights of narrow metal stairs, bounded only by a low railing.
Ken Keltner, Cleveland’s 21-year-old third baseman, still had his youthful sense of immortality, so he got ledge duty. Keltner was to be accompanied by Ossie Vitt, the Indians’ manager, but according to Keltner, Vitt “had to leave the area as he didn’t like the height.” Keltner couldn’t blame him: “The railing was very low.”
A tower employee would wave a brightly-colored flag to alert the catchers each time Keltner prepared to throw–one attempt every two minutes until his twelve allotted baseballs were gone.
From his vantage, Keltner could see only the conic base of the flag pole above and the sky in front of him. To reach the catch zone, he was told to throw the balls out a good 250 feet. In reality, that was much too far, and his first throw fell into the crowd, causing a brief scramble. “Hell, that ain’t no 250 feet,” Keltner said. “Gimme some more of those grapes.” He soon had the range.
After three practice throws, the undertaking began. Having assessed the balls’ behavior in flight, the catchers discarded the helmets, trusting in their leather tools of ignorance and their own skills. The men moved awkwardly, their necks cranked upward, scuttling to get under a ball while trying to avoid tripping on hedges and treacherous curbs at their feet.
“Those balls came down like bullets,” the flag-waver said. The first few struck the pavement and bounced impressively, at least three or four stories back into the air.
“You could barely see the ball when he let it go,” Helf remembered in 1984. “It looked like less than an aspirin tablet. It was like catching a real fast fastball, but it was fluttering like a knuckleball. That was the big problem.”
“I guess catching that ball wouldn’t have been so bad if we’d thought to wear a mask or something, but it never occurred to us to do that.”
Accounts vary, but Keltner’s second, third, or fourth throw fell cleanly into the catch zone. Helf found himself underneath. “For a second I didn’t know if it was going to hit my head or glove.” Helf’s glove arm was seen to buckle slightly with the impact and the ball tried to bobble away, but at that point the physics were all routine. He shot his bare hand out to grab it and hauled it into his chest. League rules applied–that was a fair catch, from a distance of 674 feet above.
Just one additional ball found the drop zone, and it too was snagged, by Frank Pytlak, Cleveland’s first-string catcher. Pytlak’s ball was caught in a bit of wind and zigged and zagged most of the way down, but he “got his hands up in front of his face and nabbed it neatly.” It was a cleaner catch, but the best he could do was tie the record Helf had just set.
For breaking Gabby Street’s old record, Helf got a modest trophy and, for some reason, a heavy overcoat. He wasn’t sure what happened to the coat–he never wore it–but he hung on to the trophy.
Hank Helf had a 14-year professional career but only played in 71 major league games, in which he batted .192. As a ballplayer, he was perhaps the ultimate “glove-first” catcher, known in life and remembered in death (and here again, 40 years later) for his role in the most awe-inspiring 5-2 play in history.
Paul Jackson writes about baseball, history, and culture on Substack at Project 3.18 and on Instagram. He has previously written for ESPN.com. Paul can be reached via email at pjacks2@gmail.com.
Extra Innings
During the 1982 College World Series, eventual champion University of Miami pulled off the hidden ball trick against Wichita State: