First Chuck: 1:10 PM (new anthem each week!)
The Tube: Twins.TV
The Dial: Treasure Island Baseball Network
Spies ‘R Us: Athletics Nation
Earlier this month, Target Field hosted an All Elite Wrestling (AEW) event on the plaza following a Friday night Twins game. I didn’t stick around for the body slams or drop-kicks—my professional wrestling fandom having ended when The Rock & Stone Cold Steve Austin rode off into the sunset—but the event intrigued me nonetheless. It also made me think of a fun baseball/wrestling connection story to share this afternoon.
In 1971, Randy Poffo graduated from Downers Grove High School in Illinois (a Chicago
suburb).
Randy would be signed straight out of high school by the St. Louis Cardinals and placed in the Gulf Coast League as an eighteen-year-old catcher and outfielder. From 1971-1975, Poffo would bounce around to minor league affiliates of the Cards, Cincinnati Reds, & Chicago White Sox.
Randy probably should have remained in the grassy swaths, as a home plate collision injured his right shoulder to the point where Poffo began throwing left-handed (imagine that transition while trying to make the bigs).
Ultimately, R-P would put up these numbers in four MiLB campaigns…
Without a call-up on the horizon, Randy Poffo decided to take his 6’1”, 195 lb. frame into another sporting endeavor—professional wrestling. It just so happened that father Angelo and brother Lanny were already in the biz, so Randy joined up with them in the Midwest Territory.
A decade later? He’d jump to Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and be re-branded Randy “Macho Man” Savage. By 1988, he was awarded the highest honor in choreographed grappling—the World Heavyweight Championship belt—at wrestling’s Super Bowl: Wrestlemania (notice his home run sign finger-twirl before his devastating flying elbow finisher):
The Macho Man would of course cultivate one of the most iconic careers in that business, whether grappling or selling packaged meat sticks.
What would a Randy Poffo baseball career have looked like? Alas, the shoulder injury robbed that possibility from sprouting. I can certainly say this, however: it wouldn’t have been for lack of intensity.
Hopefully, the Minnesota Twins can ascend to the top turnbuckle and deliver a finishing blow to the Oakland Vegas Unattributed Athletics today!
Click here for Lineups!
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
- New, improved notifications system!
