[ASF123]

Originally Posted by Brent G.

I hadn't thought about that dude in decades, so pulled up his Wiki page. This is insane:

The son of a steelworker, Kittle planned to work with his dad after high school, complete with being given his own ironworkers apprentice union card after graduating. However, he was enticed to seek out a tryout camp that was being held in La Porte, Indiana by the Los Angeles Dodgers. An ideal showing from the 18-year-old eventually led to scouts from the team signing him to a contract in 1976, and he would go to play with baseball in Clinton, Iowa. On his first baserunning play trying to score a run, he broke his neck when the catcher landed on him. For the rest of the year, he tried to play on what later diagnosed as a broken neck, complete with three crushed vertebrae and a cracked spinal cord. He had his discs fused while having his spine stabilized. For the next couple of years, he served as an ironworker while trying to build his body back up, trying to defy the expectations of his doctors that said he would never play baseball again (due to his injury, he could no longer hit from both sides of the plate).

A few years later, he took a suggestion to play summer ball, doing so with the American Hellinic Educational Progressive Association. One of his towering home runs went far enough from the park to land on Interstate 294, "500-plus feet away". Bill Veeck, then owner of the White Sox, heard about the home run and gave him a tryout. He signed with the White Sox in September 1978.

Huh, I never knew all of that back story - I started collecting as a kid in 1986, after his flash in the pan had ended but he was still playing.

Surprised that wasn’t turned into a very hastily made TV movie in ‘83-‘84.