Every day in 2012,
the Just One Bad Century blog will feature a story about this day in Cubs history. We're calling it
Cubs 365. I won't be posting it here every day, but I will occasionally point out some of my favorite stories. Like this one...
On this day in 1894, future Cub Lawrence "Hack" Miller was born. He was the son of a circus performer named "Sebastian the Strong Man", and he was one of the more interesting figures in Cubs history.
Here's a short excerpt from the Baseball Biography Project...
"Hack Miller entertained teammates by using his bare hand to pound tenpenny nails through two-inch planks of wood and taking the same-size nails and bending them with his fingers. It has been written that he pulled up “fair-sized trees by the roots” during spring training. He once was photographed holding a baseball bat above his head like a barbell, with a teammate hanging from each end. He bragged that one winter he lifted a car to free a woman who had been trapped beneath its wheels. And though he normally swung a 47-ounce bat, on occasion in the minor leagues he wielded a 65-ounce club that was two pounds heavier than those used by modern major leaguers of the 21st century."
Read the full Hack Miller profile here.
