In a video posted by MojoSportsLLC a few days ago, Luis Gonzalez talks about a very subtle easter egg planted in the background of one of his baseball cards. While holding his 1994 Donruss Studio card, Gonzo points out that he hung a rubber rat in his locker that can be seen just above his shoulder.
As one of many Diamondbacks fans that name the left field legend as their favorite player in franchise history, I especially love Gonzo for a few reasons. Like I mentioned in my last article, I always sat in left field so I was always sitting closest to Luis. I am left-handed and played left field, and I loved mimicking his batting stance. We even share the same birthday in September. I thought I knew the kind of personality Gonzo had – at least, as much as a normal fan could interpret from interviews and commercials. But this baseball card told a whole different story. I did a little research to see how much of a prankster our World Series hero was.
Gonzalez explains in the video that the rat was a go-to prank method in the clubhouse. He would hide the rubber rats in laundry bins and equipment boxes to terrify clubhouse attendants.
Mustaaaaaaaard!
During his time with the Florida Marlins, Gonzalez put a little mustard on his pranks. He once took a jelly-filled donut, and injected it with bright yellow mustard. He placed the sabotaged pastry back into a fresh box and waited for any sorry sucker that would take the bait. One of the clubhouse staff ended up being the fish at the end of this line.
The victim was so shocked by the taste they called the donut shop to complain about the atrocity.
Par for the Course
One of the more calculated pranks mentioned in an interview involved the visiting clubhouse at San Francisco. There was a rumor that the San Francisco Giants’ away clubhouse attendant, Harvey Hodgerney, wasn’t changing the chili every day and was instead recycling the same pot of chili for the visiting teams throughout a series.
Gonzo decided to see if this was really true. He took a golf ball from the team shop and dropped it into the bottom of the chili pot on the first day of the series. Things didn’t really go to plan when an infuriated Randy Johnson discovered a Titleist in the ladle and chewed out the clubbie for it. Gonzo begged everyone else who knew about it to not tell Randy it was him that did that.
However, that hiccup did not stop him. He tried it again the next day; lo and behold, 24 hours later and the golf ball was still at the bottom of the chili. Hodgerney called Gonzo into his office “like a principal” to tell him he couldn’t believe he did that.
Clowning Around with Bob Melvin
Now this last prank, I haven’t been able to confirm anywhere of it being the brainchild of Gonzalez, but it happened on March 10, 2003. So with the prankster we know him to be now, I’m sure we can find it most likely that he was part of this little welcome party. Bob Melvin just left Arizona to become the manager of the Seattle Mariners, and this day was his first encounter with the Diamondbacks during Spring Training.
Down in Tucson, “Bo-Mel” went to say hi to his former team in their locker room, and that’s when the operation began.
Melvin returned to find his duffel bag in a different state than he left it. His uniform was tied in knots, shoelaces removed, and a lovely picture of Tony Dello, the Diamondbacks’ batting practice pitcher, placed lovingly in the bag.
That was just the beginning.
They did make sure to return some of his old stuff to him, like his trusty fungo bat, dubbed “Wonder Bat.” Although, there was a suspiciously large drilled hole right into the sweet spot. Earlier that morning, someone had told the Diamondbacks about a big secret that Melvin had been able to keep hidden for two years.
Bob Melvin is terrified of clowns.
So we would only find it logical that two fully outfitted clowns, “Bob” and “Melvin,” showed up during the third inning at Tucson Electric Park to throw t-shirts into the stands. I’m sure you can guess where they were standing.
They came out a few more times to stand on the Mariners’ dugout, where Bob Melvin would retreat back into like an underground bunker.
Gonzo just happened to get beaned by Jeff Nelson in the bottom of the sixth; he promptly walked towards the mound screaming who knows what at him and caused the benches to clear.
Bob Brenly later said, “I noticed the clowns. I had nothing to do with it. Other than that, I have no comment.”
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