Ossee Schreckengost

Highly rated by Connie Mack as a defensive catcher and handler of pitchers, Schreckengost and Hall of Famer Rube Waddell formed a devastating battery for the early Athletics. Off the field, the two were cohorts in mischief; Mack later called the catcher “the Harpo Marx of his time.” When they roomed together on road trips, Schreckengost had written into Waddell’s contract that he was not to eat crackers in bed. Schreckengost disdained shin guards (invented near the end of his career), and used a one-handed catching style over fifty years before it became an accepted technique.