Jansen becomes first MLB player ever to appear for two teams in same game
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Danny Jansen has made baseball history.
The Red Sox catcher became the first player in MLB history to play for both teams in the same game Monday when the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston picked up their suspended game from June 26.
Jansen, who was traded from the Blue Jays to the Red Sox on July 27 in exchange for three prospects, started for the Jays in the rain-suspended game that was made up Monday with the Jays in Fenway Park to begin a series with the Red Sox.
Boston manager Alex Cora told reporters last week Jansen would start the opening game of the doubleheader, clearing the way for him to do something that had never been done before.
“Baseball has been around for so long, there’s so many things that’s happened in the game. So I was surprised when I found out I was the first,” Jansen told reporters this weekend. “Any time you can be a part of this great game’s history, it’s pretty unique.”
In fact, Jansen was at the plate for the Jays in the top of the second inning on June 26 when umpires called for the tarp. On Monday, Jansen crouched down behind the plate while Daulton Varsho hit for the Jays in his spot.
“It’s pretty fitting that Jano will be the first guy to do that. He’s that kind of guy. Weird stuff happens to him,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said last week.
The 29-year-old Jansen has appeared in a total of 75 games this season, coming into Monday slashing .215/.308/.371 with eight home runs and 23 RBI. He is scheduled to become a free agent at the end of the year after spending his first seven big-league seasons with Toronto.
Game 2 of the Blue Jays-Red Sox doubleheader will go just after 7 p.m. ET at Fenway.
Other oddities throughout history
While Jansen is the first in the majors to play for two teams in the same game, outfielder Dale Holman played for both the Syracuse Chiefs and Richmond Braves in the same Triple-A game in 1986.
The Chiefs were a Blue Jays affiliate at the time and had released Holman after he’d played in a suspended game against Richmond. When the game resumed, Holman had signed with the Braves’ Double-A affiliate and was promoted to Triple-A Richmond before the resumption of the suspended game.
There have been other occurrences similar to Jansen and Holman. On Aug. 4, 1982, outfielder Joel Youngblood got a hit and drove in a pair of runs early in a day game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Youngblood was then traded to the Montreal Expos and pulled from the game in the third inning.
The Expos, who played in Philadelphia against the Phillies that night, were shorthanded and put Youngblood in the game as a pinch-hitter after he'd arrived from a cross-country flight mid-game. Digging in against future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, Youngblood singled up the middle, giving him two hits for two different teams on the same day.
On Oct. 11, 1992, Deion Sanders played for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons in Miami during the afternoon and then flew to Pittsburgh, where he suited up for the Braves against the Pirates in Game 5 of the NLCS.