Wisconsin native makes baseball history by playing for 2 MLB teams in the same game

There have been over 240,000 games played in the history of Major League Baseball.

Nearly 21,000 players have appeared in those games. 

Never has a player played for both teams in the same game.

That is, until last week. 

Danny Jansen, who graduated from Appleton West High School, became the first player in the history of the league to play on both sides of a game when the Boston Red Sox took on the Toronto Blue Jays on Aug. 26.

It all started on June 26 when the Blue Jays were playing the Red Sox in Boston.

In the second inning, Jansen was up to bat with a count of 0-1. Then the umpires called a rain delay and eventually suspended the game.

In July, the Blue Jays traded Jansen to the Red Sox. The makeup game for the rain delay was scheduled for Aug. 26.

When the game resumed in the second inning, Jansen was behind the plate, playing catcher for the Red Sox — the team he had been hitting against in June.  

The pinch hitter who completed Jansen’s at-bat for the Blue Jays was another Wisconsin native: Daulton Varsho of Marshfield. 

“Definitely cool, definitely grateful for the opportunity to be in that position,” Jansen said in an interview with the New England Sports Network before the game.

The anomaly was “one of those crazy things about this game and definitely an oddity, but it’s going to be cool,” he added in the interview. 

Jansen technically batted for both teams in the same inning.

When it was all said and done, he went 0-0 for the Blue Jays, and 1-4 for the Red Sox.

The oddity caught the attention of the sports world. A spokesperson for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum said the museum is receiving a scorecard from the game.

Ryne Goralski, the general manager for the Kenosha Kingfish of the Northwoods League — a summer college baseball league — said it was fun to watch. 

“It’s one of those baseball anomaly things that are just funny and goofy,” Goralski said.

“I feel like you always hear, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen that,’” he added. “Hundreds of years of, ‘We’ve never seen this,’ and sure enough, baseball always has a way of having these oddities and weird stats.”

Goralski said Will Wagner, who played for the Kingfish in 2018, also played in the Aug. 26 game. Jansen’s pinch-hitter Varsho played in the Northwoods League and attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“It’s kind of funny to see all these Wisconsin guys with ties to the area coming through in the big leagues,” said Rob Zerjav, the president and CEO of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

There are currently 12 MLB players who were born in Wisconsin playing in the league now, according to Baseball Reference. That includes Kenosha native Gavin Lux and Waukesha native Jarred Kelenic.