Benny Meyer

Opponents claimed that Meyer gave them an earache by shouting incessantly while a coach with the Phillies and Tigers. He played all but 29 of his major league games in the Federal League. For 60 years he was a minor league player, coach, and manager, and a scout. His brother, Lee, was a Brooklyn shortstop for seven games in 1909. To wring a signing bonus from the Dodgers, Benny brazenly faked a letterhead for his modest farm and invited Brooklyn owner Charlie Ebbets to visit. He rounded up cows from every farm in the range and put them in his pastures, telling Ebbets he couldn’t abandon his herd for the paltry amount he had been offered. He extracted a $1,000 bonus, but played in only 38 games for Brooklyn, hitting .195.