3/13/1930 - Robbie ball switched for fruit

At spring training, Brooklyn manager Wilbert Robinson attempts to best a cult accomplishment. In 1908, Gabby Street caught a baseball that was thrown to him from the top of the Washington Monument -- more than 500 feet from the ground. Robinson insisted that it was no big deal, and when his players asked him to back up his words, he ordered an airplane to deliver him a pitch from about the same height.

As the 51 year-old waited for the ball to arrive, Ruth Law, the plane's pilot, dropped a grapefruit instead of a baseball. She later said she had forgotten to bring a baseball, though it was always suspected that Brooklyn teammate Casey Stengel had made the switch. As the orb reached the Brookyln skipper, the fruit's red pulp splattered all over the former catcher, who believed that he had been drenched in blood. "Jesus, I'm killed!" he screamed. "I'm dead! My chest's split open! I'm covered with blood!"

He was fine, though his teammates were doubled over in laughter.

3/13/1999 - Williams calls it for Holyfield

The name "Eugenia Williams" doesn't mean anything right now, nor did it mean anything up to March 12, 1999. But after a 1999 heavyweight bout, the most important one in New York City in years, Williams was the most talked about woman in the country... not named Monica Lewinsky.

In the heavyweight championship match between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield, all observers had Lewis as the winner. Yet of three judges scoring the match, one gave it to Lewis 116-113, another had it as a draw, while Williams somehow had Holyfield as the winner. It was a draw.

There was an incredible amount of outrage from the decision, with many questioning if it had been fixed. Williams, as the lone judge to have Holyfield as the victor, received an enormous amount of criticism. Eugenia testified in court and after watching the video of the match, she admitted that she had made a mistake. Her excuse was that the photographers were blocking her view and that she couldn't see the fight properly.

"There were times when I couldn't see," she said. "I couldn't judge what I couldn't see. The other judges may have seen what I couldn't see. I couldn't go to the other side. I even hit my head on a camera when I tried to get closer.''

Eight months later, Lewis and Holyfield hooked up again for a rematch. Lewis prevailed in an undisputed decision.

Further reading:

None too great the old grapefruit play [New York Times]

How a clerk maid got on the main card [New York Times]