Rip Sewell Marquee

He invented the eephus — a blooper thrown twenty-five feet high that came down through the strike zone — after a hunting accident in 1941 filled his right foot with shotgun pellets and changed how he could push off. He won 21 games in 1943 and 21 again in 1944 with it.

In the 1946 All-Star Game at Fenway Park he threw one to Ted Williams, who stepped forward and hit it into the bullpen, the only home run anyone hit off the pitch. Sewell was laughing about it before Williams reached second.

Thirteen seasons gave him 143 wins against 97, a 3.48 earned run average, 2,119 innings and 137 complete games, with four All-Star selections. He was thirty-one before he won a major-league game. Three writers' ballots gave him one vote each. He died in 1989, at eighty-two.