The Great Potato Caper

MILB.com has been posting a series of articles called Cracked Bats. The series focuses on the weird, strange, and/or unique happenings in the history of minor league baseball. The story this week is about an event that is all three.

Backup catcher's career mashed in 'Potato Caper'
Bresnahan released after tricking runner by throwing spud into outfield

It's been nearly two decades since Dave Bresnahan pulled The Great Potato Caper. And while the stunt may have contributed to the premature end of his baseball career, his spud-throwing session remains as one of the most talked-about events in Minor League history.

Bresnahan was a light-hitting backup catcher in 1987, playing out the year for a mediocre Williamsport team in the Double-A Eastern League. And when he and his teammates decided to have some fun at the expense of the Reading Phillies during the final weekend of the season, one of the most imaginative pranks in baseball history drew the expected guffaws.
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It's understandable that people have had a hard time forgetting what Bresnahan did on a late August night in 1987. His actions at Bowman Field seemed to come straight from the pages of comedy script and to this day, talk of what he did still draws laughter. But there was nothing funny about the fallout after Bresnahan smuggled a potato onto the field and hurled it into left field in an attempt to fool the umpires, the fans and the Reading Phillies.

"I was the backup catcher and when you're sitting in the bullpen, you have to do something to break the boredom," he said. "So we had a lot of discussions from baseball to politics. We talked about all kinds of tricks people had done, whether they were in college or high school. We talked about bringing a potato or a roll of tape onto the field.
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When Reading's Rick Lundblade reached third base with two outs in the fifth inning of the opener, Bresnahan put his plan into action. He informed home plate umpire Scott Potter that something was wrong with his glove and that he would need to get a new one from the dugout. The move would serve as the signal to his teammates that the plan was about to be enacted.

Stashed in his spare glove was the potato that would change his life. When Bresnahan trotted back onto the field, spud in tow, he called for the requisite low, outside pitch, one which the batter would take. During the pitch, he moved the potato from his glove hand to his throwing hand and upon catching the ball, sprang up and hurled the potato over the Swain's head and into left field.

Lundblade broke for the plate but upon reaching home, Bresnahan smiled, produced the ball and tagged him for the third out of the inning. He quickly rolled the ball back to the mound and headed for the dugout as he and his teammates enjoyed a good laugh.

"I started to run to the dugout and I hear the third-base umpire yelling that it's a 'bleeping' potato," Bresnahan said. "My roommate had a close friend who had an umpire for a close friend and we had called him about a week before to see how he would rule. He said he felt they'd just send the runner back to third and kick me out of the game.
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Williamsport manager Orlando Gomez yanked Bresnahan immediately and eventually fined him $50. Potter called the runner safe and the inning continued. The Bills went on to win the game, but that wasn't the end of the story. Gomez was so incensed at what had taken place he helped orchestrate Bresnahan's release from Cleveland the following day.

"[Gomez] thought I did it to make him look bad," Bresnahan said. "But that was not the case. I still don't think he looks upon me positively, but he doesn't get it. He wanted to fight me. Jeff Scott, Cleveland's Minor League director at the time, saw great humor in it but they had to make an example that they couldn't have players pulling stunts. And I was just the backup catcher.

"I think the overreaction they had to it is what got all the attention. They got rid of me when other guys get second and third and fourth chances. I think it was unfair to get released. I guess if I was hitting .340 instead of .140 it would have been different."

He may not have played professional baseball ever again, but Bresnahan is doing okay now. He is now a real estate mogul in Arizona.

Lunblade is doing okay now, too.

Lundblade, meanwhile, enjoys nearly as much notoriety as Bresnahan.

Now a lawyer in Oregon, the Stanford graduate says the incident is a hot topic of conversation several times a year after folks come across his name on the Internet.

"It seems like not a year goes by without someone telling me about the potato incident," Lundblade said. "It's a story that has never died, and I suspect it never will. It was a fun moment in retrospect. Richie
Ashburn was the color guy for the Phillies and the following day he was talking about it.

"And he says 'The funny thing is, the Lundblade kid actually went to Stanford. The Stanford guy couldn't distinguish between the potato and the baseball.'"

The potato is doing okay, too. It can be viewed at something called the Baseball Reliquary in Monrovia, California. The picture of the potato below is from the Bresnahan section of their website and was originally taken by Larry Goren.