Eddie Gaedel

His father, Carl Gaedele (1886–1949), was a Lithuanian immigrant who managed a department store and worked as a parking lot checker.

His mother, Helen (née Janicki), was a homemaker.

Edward Carl Gaedel (June 8, 1925 – June 18, 1961) was the smallest player to appear in a Major League Baseball game.

Edward Carl Gaedele (Gaedel) was born In Cook County, Illinois, on June 8, 1925.

In 1930, the Gaedele family lived in Chicago's Garfield Ridge neighborhood, and by 1940, the family lived in Back of the Yards.

Gaedel had worked as a riveter during World War II, as he was able to crawl inside the wings of airplanes.

He was a professional performer, belonging to the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA).

Although Veeck denied the stunt was directly inspired by it, the appearance of Gaedel was similar to the plot of "You Could Look It Up", a 1941 short story by James Thurber.

Veeck later said he got the idea from listening to the conversations of Giants manager John McGraw decades earlier when Veeck was a child.

After the war, Gaedel was hired in 1946 by Mercury Records as a mascot to portray the "Mercury Man".

He sported a winged hat similar to the record label's logo, to promote Mercury recordings.

Some early Mercury recordings featured a caricature of him as its logo.

Browns' owner Bill Veeck, a showman who enjoyed staging publicity stunts, found Gaedel through a booking agency.

Secretly signed by the Browns, he was added to the team roster and put in uniform (with the number "1⁄8" on the back).

The uniform was that of future St. Louis Cardinals managing partner and chairman William DeWitt, Jr. who was a 9-year-old batboy for the Browns at the time.

Gaedel came out of a papier-mache cake between games of a doubleheader at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis to celebrate the American League's 50th anniversary.

The stunt was also billed as a Falstaff Brewery promotion.

Falstaff, and the fans, had been promised a "festival of surprises" by Veeck.

Before the second game got underway, the press agreed that the "midget-in-a-cake" appearance had not been up to Veeck's usual promotional standard.

Falstaff personnel, who had been promised national publicity for their participation, were particularly dissatisfied.

Keeping the surprise he had in store for the second game to himself, Veeck just meekly apologized.

Gaedel gained recognition in the second game of a St. Louis Browns doubleheader on August 19, 1951.

Weighing 60 lb and standing 3 ft tall, he became the shortest player in the history of the Major Leagues.

Gaedel made a single plate appearance and was walked with four consecutive balls before being replaced by a pinch-runner at first base.

His jersey, bearing the uniform number "1⁄8", is displayed in the St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

On August 19, 1951, Gaedel entered the second half of the doubleheader between the Browns and Detroit Tigers in the bottom of the first inning as a pinch-hitter for leadoff batter Frank Saucier.

Immediately, umpire Ed Hurley called for Browns manager Zack Taylor.

Veeck and Taylor had the foresight to have a copy of Gaedel's contract on hand, as well as a copy of the Browns' active roster, which had room for Gaedel's addition.

The contract had been filed late in the day on Friday, August 17.

Veeck knew the league office would summarily approve the contract upon receipt, and that it would not be scrutinized until Monday, August 20.

Upon reading the contract, Hurley motioned for Gaedel to take his place in the batter's box (as a result of Gaedel's appearance, all contracts must now be approved by the Commissioner of Baseball before a player can appear in a game).

The change to that day's St. Louis Browns scorecard, listing Gaedel and his uniform number, had gone unnoticed by everyone except Harry Mitauer, a writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

The Browns' publicity man shunted Mitauer's inquiry aside.

Until Gaedel stepped up to the plate, even his teammates had no idea he was actually going to play in the game.

Gaedel was under strict orders not to attempt to move the bat off his shoulder.

When Veeck got the impression that Gaedel might be tempted to swing at a pitch, he warned Gaedel that he had taken out a $1 million insurance policy on his life, and that he would be standing on the roof of the stadium with a rifle prepared to kill Gaedel if he even looked like he was going to swing.

Veeck had carefully trained Gaedel to assume a tight crouch at the plate; he had measured Gaedel's strike zone in that stance and claimed it was just 1+1/2 in high.

However, when Gaedel came to the plate, he abandoned the crouch he had been taught for a pose that Veeck described as "a fair approximation of Joe DiMaggio's classic style", leading Veeck to fear he was going to swing (in the Thurber story, the player with dwarfism cannot resist swinging at a 3–0 pitch, grounds out, and the team loses the game).

With Bob Cain on the mound—laughing at the absurdity that he actually had to pitch to Gaedel —and catcher Bob Swift catching on his knees, Gaedel took his stance.

St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck, in his 1962 autobiography Veeck – As in Wreck, said of Gaedel, "He was, by golly, the best darn midget who ever played big-league ball. He was also the only one."