One fun fact for every Major League Baseball team
Fun fact: That's 30 fun facts!
I’m taking you out to the ball game
The 2025 baseball season has arrived! As regular Ryan Email Club readers are likely aware, I’m an unabashed baseball enthusiast. I’ve followed America’s Pastime feverishly for decades as a safe and convenient way to connect with other emotionally stunted men.
My passion for baseball has fomented a deep knowledge of the history and culture surrounding the game. In this week’s email, I thought it would be fun to impart some of that knowledge to my indifferent readership.
Below is a fun piece of trivia about each Major League Baseball team. Some of these tidbits may already be familiar to you, but others might come as a surprise. Enjoy, and play ball!
Arizona Diamondbacks
Alphabetically speaking, Arizona comes in first every year. The team plays its home games in Phoenix, but they sagely chose to associate with a more alphabetically advantageous place name, setting themselves up for perennial supremacy.
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are the only MLB team with an underwater stadium. In fact, they win nearly all of their home games by forfeit, as no visiting team has been able to locate their legendary subaqueous ballpark.
Baltimore Orioles
Baseball demigod Babe Ruth began his professional career with a minor league iteration of the Baltimore Orioles. To this day, he still holds several team records, including most hotdogs eaten in a single homestand (12,047) and longest pregame keg stand (7 hours, 19 minutes, 7 seconds).1
Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox once shared their ballpark with a demonic, man-eating creature known to baseball fans as the Green Monster. For decades, the ravenous beast would decimate Boston’s top talent, hindering their quest for an elusive World Series crown.
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs play in Wrigley Field, a century-old stadium renowned for its verdant landscaping. The field of play features ivy-covered brick walls, boxwood hedges around home plate, a pole bean arch between second and third, an 80-foot hickory tree in shallow right-center field, and a surprisingly knotty par 3 that doglegs into the left field corner.
Chicago White Sox
The White Sox are the only team to ever play an entire season in high heels. Outfielder Ron Kittle won “Rookie of the Year” honors that year, but his performance declined in subsequent seasons as Chicago transitioned to platforms.
Cincinnati Reds
During the “Red Scare” era of the 1950s, in which paranoia over communist infiltrations was rampant, the Reds briefly changed their name to the Cincinnati Market Socialists.
Cleveland Guardians
The Guardians hold the record for longest World Series championship drought, but at least they’ve won it before. I mean, when’s the last time you won the World Series? Huh? HUH?? Yeah, that’s what I THOUGHT. Loser.
Colorado Rockies
Because the Rockies play one mile above sea level in Denver, baserunners receive supplementary oxygen tanks and are guided around the infield by Sherpas.
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers play in the only ballpark with no dugouts. Both Detroit and their visiting opponents are invited to sit in beanbag chairs in the outfield and enjoy a buffet of Little Caesars Crazy Bread throughout the game.
Houston Astros
The Astros were founded by former Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who still serves as first base coach for Houston. In 2023, Aldrin punched an umpire for saying the moon landing was faked.
Kansas City Royals
Worried their stadium fare was contributing to fans’ unhealthy diets, the Royals attempted to served only apple slices and glasses of water during a Sunday matinee. Kansas Citians revolted, burning down the stadium and abducting Royals legend George Brett, who is still missing.
Los Angeles Angels
“Los Angeles” means “The Angels” in Spanish, so the full team name literally translates to “The Angels Angels.” This may seem redundant, but baseball teams have a proud history of repeating the city’s name in the team nickname. Some early examples include the Salt Lake City Lagos Salados, the Providence Deities, and the Buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers originally hail from Brooklyn, where the team dazzled audiences in a few high school plays. The bright-eyed, bushy-tailed Dodgers decided to try to make it big in Hollywood, but they quickly became disillusioned after a few seedy show biz hucksters bamboozled them with empty promises and outright grifts. Penniless and demoralized, the Dodgers eventually resorted to playing baseball to make ends meet.
Miami Marlins
Marlins fans have a fun tradition of casting fishing lines onto the field during game. Twelve Marlins players have been caught over the years, and the lucky fans were permitted to keep their catch. It should be noted that the use of live bait is not allowed.
Milwaukee Brewers
Brewers’ home games are famous for their between-innings “sausage race,” in which four different varieties of sausage race around the field. The three losing sausages are flame-broiled on the pitcher’s mound and served to the winning sausage, who must finish eating his foes before the game is allowed to continue.
Minnesota Twins
Desperate for publicity, the Twins originally signed future Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett as a package deal with his identical twin brother, Korbin. Team officials soon realized Korbin was just Kirby with a fake mustache and a vaguely British accent. Despite fooling no one, Puckett continued the ruse for years.
New York Mets
In 1982, the Mets fielded an all-dog lineup. After some initial success, the team slumped badly when opponents began regularly deploying the hidden ball trick with devastating effect.
New York Yankees
The Yankees are a real baseball team, but their primary line of business is selling hats to people who don’t really care about baseball but want to have like a normal-looking baseball hat to wear when they’re like at the park or their hair looks dumb that day or whatever.
Philadelphia Phillies
Philadelphia’s notorious mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, was conspicuously absent during the 1994 and 1995 seasons. Rumors persist that the mascot was caught gambling on Phillies games, and MLB officials quietly urged him to pursue his interest in NASCAR racing until the heat was off.
Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates used to share a stadium with the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers. The two teams reportedly were best of friends before they moved in together, but the relationship deteriorated precipitously due to differences in opinion over household chores, sleeping habits, and personal hygiene.
San Diego Padres
The Padres played their inaugural season in a domed stadium because team owners were afraid the players would refuse to play baseball and go to the beach instead if they saw how nice the weather was.
San Francisco Giants
San Francisco reserves an entire section of the bleachers for harbor seals. Opposing left fielders commonly complain about the frequent interruptions from errant beach balls reaching the field of play.
Seattle Mariners
Instead of singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch, Mariners fans are invited to silently contemplate Seattle’s inevitable destruction after the Cascadia Subduction Zone finally releases centuries of pent-up subterranean tension. The silence is then broken by Macklemore’s hit single, “Can’t Hold Us.”
St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis has the only MLB venue with a two-drink minimum.
Tampa Bay Rays
Contrary to popular belief, the Rays are not named after devil rays. Rather, every member of the team is literally named Ray. Players acquired via trade must legally change their name to Ray. Additionally, only fans named Ray may attend Rays games, and anyone living in the Tampa Bay area who doesn’t personally know a Ray must relocate within 30 days. And no, that does NOT include Raes. It’s only Rays.
Texas Rangers
One time the Texas Rangers and Superman got into a fight, and the loser had to wear their underwear on the outside of their pants. The Texas Rangers were born in a log cabin they built with their own hands. The Texas Rangers never sleep; they wait.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays are the only MLB team based in a nation with a democratic form of government.
Washington Nationals
Nationals Park is known colloquially as “The House that Jimmy Carter Built” due to its origins as a Habitat for Humanity project. Carter was personally involved in correctly aligning the stadium’s foul poles.
Athletics
The Athletics are a former major league baseball team that no longer exists.
Click Roulette
The below links match one of the two descriptions provided for each. Click at your own peril!
CLICK HERE FOR LINK ONE. This is either:
A Slack channel where the executive branch discusses suspending habeas corpus, and they use so many more emojis than you’d expect.
A spring training test run of MLB’s experimental “Golden Ass” moment.
CLICK HERE FOR LINK TWO. This is either:
A website where a former public health official just kinda guesses how many measles cases there are.
Footage from the 1965 World Series that shows how permissive umpires used to be about checked swings, and honestly this won’t be interesting for a majority of you but it is BLOWING MY MIND.
CLICK HERE FOR LINK THREE. This is either:
A great deal on St. Patrick’s Day-themed napkins.
A monkey snapping green beans with his tiny hands.
Do you have a question about etiquette?
Whether it concerns public transit, public urinals, or something else entirely, the REC Etiquette Guide has all the answers!
Reply to this email, leave a comment, or send me a message, and I’ll respond in next week’s email.
Tortoise pic of the week
Wordle hint (SPOILER)
Never forget that each new day brings an incrementally higher probability that PENIS will be the next Wordle of the day.
Song of the week
Buttons
After setting the keg stand record, Ruth would go on to pitch 7 scoreless innings and bat 2 for 5 with a double and two runs scored.
In my continued tradition of hating Baseball, I am not reading this post. Someday I hope you'll understand.
Another fun fact about the Mariners: the collective breath of the attendees at T-Mobile Park after they have all eaten the garlic fries is the only terrestrial odor you can smell FROM SPACE.