Content Creator Tony is here with his recurring segment, TonySPN, where he breaks down an under-told story in the world of sports. It’s the baseball postseason [ed note: go Phils! - Ruby], so we’re focusing on the MLB. Take it away, Tony!

As regular readers of the Friday-Know-It-All (and now, TonySPN) know, while Trivia Mafia may not always be into sports, we’re definitely always into weird stuff in sports. So when stuff like “The Minnesota Twins inducting César Tovar into their Hall of Fame this season” happens, we take notice.

Why? It’s not because Tovar was famous for being an Aaron Judge-type slugger. Going by a stat that I won’t explain called OPS+, Tovar’s hitting was exactly average throughout his career.

But you should still know Tovar, because he’s famous in Twins lore for playing all nine positions in a single baseball game in September of 1968.

It’s not rare for baseball players to play multiple positions. If you can, for example, play center field, it’s not much of a stretch to play in left or right field. Nor is it a big deal if a shortstop plays second, third, or first base. In fact, a few players, like Ben Zobrist, were famous for playing all of those positions over their careers.

But it is rare for a player to even be able to play every single position over the course of their career, much less a single season, or single game. The skills needed for a pitcher don’t translate to the outfield, for example. It’s the same with catching, where the priority is finding someone whose knees can handle standing up and squatting repeatedly. If you’re asking me: No thanks!

Tovar pitched, caught, and played the other seven infield and outfield positions during a 2-1 win against the Oakland As. You read that right: While the Twins and Tovar were no doubt executing a gimmick — you don’t naturally decide to play every position during the course of the game — it worked. And it was likely the hardest day of manager Cal Ermer’s career, as well, as he made 24 moves involving shifting players, pinch-hitting, and substitutions to make the feat possible.

The first player Tovar faced was, funnily enough (or planned for the gimmick’s maximum effect), Bert Campaneris, who became the first player to play all nine positions three years prior in a 5-3 loss to the California Angels.

Since then, Scott Sheldon (of the Texas Rangers, 2000), Shane Halter (Detroit Tigers, 2000), and Andrew Romine (Tigers, 2017), have joined the Nine Positions In One Game Club. But Campaneris’ game might have been most impressive, and not just because he was the first to do it. He pitched with both arms that game, throwing left-handed to left-handed hitters, and right-handed to right-handed hitters.

While a lot of players can bat left and right-handed (switch-hitters, in baseball-speak), basically no one pitches with both arms. Since left-handed hitters struggle versus left-handed pitchers, and righty hitters are worse against right-handed pitchers, it would be a huge advantage if someone could.

Enter Pat Venditte, who you may remember from the very silly headline “Amphibious Pitcher Makes Debut.” Venditte doesn’t live on both water and land, he’s merely ambidextrous. He never threw particularly hard or accurately, but who cares? Dude threw with both hands!

In fact, baseball had to change the rules for Venditte. Venditte would pick which arm he pitched from depending on the hitter’s handedness. But what happens when a switch-hitter approaches the plate?

The answer was: nothing. The switch-hitter would pick a side, Venditte would change his throwing arm to get the advantage, prompting the switch-hitter to change sides and repeat the process until the umpires got sick of it.

In 2008, baseball released Rule 5.07(f), which means the pitcher must declare which hand he will use before pitching, by placing his glove on his non-throwing hand. The hitter can choose his side accordingly. The pitcher can’t change his hand during an at-bat, and must tell the umpire when he intends to change hands.

That’s a lot of rules for one guy named Pat Venditte. Apparently, Campaneris didn’t run into this problem in 1965. We haven’t seen an ambidextrous pitcher since Venditte was last in the majors in 2020.

That doesn’t mean we won’t see a player like that again. After all, few thought we’d see someone like Shohei Ohtani, the 2021 MVP winner. Ohtani is a once-in-a-century talent who excels as both a hitter and pitcher. That just isn’t done, ever.

His impact is enormous and his accomplishments are unique. In 2022, Ohtani took his team’s first at-bat of the season, while also throwing out the first pitch. Major League Baseball is almost 150 years old. This is the first time that happened.

To put his brilliance another way, Ohtani hit .273 (he hit the ball 27.3% of the time) with 34 home runs this year, and threw 166 innings with a 2.33 ERA (earned run average – lower is better). Francisco Lindor hit .273 and hit 33 home runs in 2017, and finished fifth in MVP voting. In 2021, Corbin Burnes won a Cy Young Award for being the best pitcher by throwing 167 innings with a 2.43 ERA.

So, a player with just Ohtani’s hitting ability, or just his pitching ability, is a Top 5 player in the league. He has both. It’s incredible, it’s never been seen before. And the wonderful thing about baseball is someday, someone else is going to dazzle us with something incredibly rare and bizarre and spectacular, the way Campaneris and Tovar did 50 years ago, and Ohtani is today.