Johnny’s Last Stands
Johnny Evers probably should have played his last Major League Baseball game in 1917. He was 35 years old tat year, and wound up playing for both the Braves and Phillies, putting together an awful .214 batting average in 317 plate appearances.
Evers is a Hall of Famer, of course - though his Hall of Fame credentials are debatable at best.
But one thing is certain: Evers wasn’t timid.
After retirement, Evers came back not only once, but twice.
Johnny’s first comeback came on April 27, 1922 with the Chicago White Sox. For one reason or another, the White Sox wound up down a second baseman - and so Evers stood in, at the young age of 40:
Evers didn’t do anything with the bat, though this was normal for Johnny:
And, of course, they couldn’t finish the game because of the train schedules. Not even OOTP can simulate that for you.
Anyway, this would have been an odd but interesting end to Johnny’s career if it weren’t for his second comeback.
This one came in 1929, at the very end of the season. Evers was a coach with the Boston Braves by this time, and I guess they figured they might as well stick him in there.
Now, the newspaper coverage of this game wasn’t great, mostly because the journalists were all paying attention to the upcoming World Series. But at least we got something:
The boxscore for this game reads like a dinner menu:
Anyway, there you have it. Evers was certainly not known for his bat.