Catcher Danny Jansen becomes the first player in MLB history to play for both teams in the same game
A two-month delay for the Toronto Blue Jays and Boston Red Sox led to a bizarre moment in baseball history: the first player in Major League Baseball history to compete for both teams in the same game.
When the game was first called off due to rain on June 26, catcher Danny Jansen was playing for the Blue Jays. But the Canadian team traded him to the Red Sox for three prospects a month later.
So when the weather-delayed match resumed early in the second round on Monday, Jansen was playing his former team in the exact same game he had played two months earlier.
According to MLB, no other player can claim such a feat.
Jansen and the Red Sox lost the game 7-3 to his former teammates. Maybe the fact that he achieved a first in major league history will help him recover from that pain.
The Blue Jays, who drafted Jansen in 2013, released side-by-side photos of Jansen wearing both teams’ gear.
“Long at-bat huh,” the team captioned X.
The official MLB account also had a few jokes, writing “the duality of man” to caption an X-rated photo of Jansen on the scoreboard.
He wrote in another message: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Ask Danny Jansen.”
Jansen told reporters he was surprised to learn he was the first and had not yet fully realised it.
“To leave such a mark on the game is both strange and interesting,” Jansen said. “I’m grateful to have had the opportunity. And at the end of the day, it’s a cool thing.”
He added that he “never imagined” he would make sports history in this kind of situation. Jansen said he wore two jerseys Monday so he could donate an authentic game uniform to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
