April 13, 1921: The 1st MLB Player With Glasses

April 13, 1921: Opening Day at Cubs Park in Chicago, later to be renamed Wrigley Field. The Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals 5-2. This rivalry was not yet what it would become.

Rogers Hornsby went 1-for-3 with a walk for the Cards. Bob O'Farrell hit a home run for the Cubs, in support of Grover Cleveland Alexander.

George Toporcer made his major league debut, as the Cards’ 2nd baseman, and got a hit. The 22-year-old Manhattan native also became the 1st player to wear eyeglasses in a major league game. He was known as Specs Toporcer thereafter, for his spectacles.

He played 8 seasons in the major leagues, and helped the Cardinals win the 1926 World Series. That team would also include Hornsby, O'Farrell and Alexander. Also in 1926, Cubs Park was renamed Wrigley Field.

Toporcer later became a minor league manager and scout, but his eyesight further degraded, and he was blind from 1951 onward. He became a motivational speaker, known as Baseball's Blind Ambassador. In 1966, Lawrence Ritter included an interview with Toporcer in his book The Glory of Their Times. He lived until 1989, and was both the last survivor of that book's interviewees and the 1926 Cardinals.

Players who wore glasses, rather than sunglasses, have been rare. A few, like Dom DiMaggio, Joe's brother, were nicknamed "Professor," because glasses made them look like intellectuals. Oddly, the next-best player nicknamed "Spec" was Frank Shea, a Yankee pitcher of the 1940s, and he got his nickname because he had freckles, or speckles.

By the 1990s, contact lenses and laser-eye surgery made sunglasses on a ballfield obsolete. Of course, headhunting pitchers like Pedro Martinez made glasses dangerous.

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April 13, 1921 was a Wednesday. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the Stanley Cup had been won 9 days earlier, by the Ottawa Senators. These other baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 11-1 at the Polo Grounds. Babe Ruth went 5-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Oddly, none of those 5 hits was a home run. Aaron Ward hit one for the Yankees, in support of Carl Mays. Mays gave up only 3 hits: 2 singles by Tillie Walker, and a triple by future Yankee Joe Dugan.

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 10-8 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. George "High Pockets" Kelly went went 1-for-5 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Frankie Frisch went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs.

* The Brooklyn Robins (as the Dodgers were known under the 1914-31 managership of Wilbert Robinson) beat the Boston Braves, 5-4 at Braves Field in Boston. Zack Wheat went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 6-3 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-3 at Redland Field in Cincinnati. (It was renamed Crosley Field in 1934.)

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Cleveland Indians, 4-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. George Sisler went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Indians player-manager Tris Speaker went 0-for-4.

* And the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers debuted the next day, at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was renamed Briggs Stadium in 1938, and Tiger Stadium in 1961.) The Tigers won, 6-5. In his 1st game as Tiger manager, Ty Cobb went 1-for-4. Eddie Collins went 0-for-4 for the White Sox.