The trade deadline can create some unique occurrences, amongst them are Joakim Soria being traded from the Texas Rangers to the Detroit Tigers during a rain delay at Yankee Stadium on July 23, 2014.
Soria’s first of five career trades occurred a night after the Yankees acquired Chase Headley from the San Diego Padres, got him on a flight from Chicago to New York. Once Headley’s flight landed, they were able to insert him into a game in the eighth inning and enjoyed him getting the game-ending hit in the 14th inning or nowadays the fifth overtime to cap a game that lasted four hours, 51 minutes.
Perhaps nobody has experienced consecutive unique trade deadlines like veteran catcher Danny Jansen.
Jansen spent Monday afternoon in the Tampa Bay Rays clubhouse getting ready for his 74th game. Then he was called into a meeting with manager Kevin Cash and president of baseball operations Erik Neander to learn he was going to be traded to the Milwaukee Brewers.
In many cases after this kind of meeting, the player packs his bag, gets flight information or other travel information from the traveling secretary and heads on the way to the new team. While a player is headed to his new team, the press release is issued.
Except Jansen needed to stay on the active roster Monday night because the Rays had nobody else who could catch if something happened to Matt Thaiss.
“I was getting ready to play the game and I understand that side of baseball,” Jansen said as a large equipment bag was positioned next to his locker. Just grateful for the time spent here with the guys.
Shortly after reports circulated about Jansen being traded, he was pulled from the lineup and was available if an injury cropped up. That gave him the opportunity to enjoy one more home run from Junior Caminero, a four-out save from Pete Fairbanks and Drew Rasmussen surviving a 33-pitch first inning before the Rays officially announced the trade about an hour after completing their 54th win in 107 games this season.
“Finding out today, it’s definitely an odd thing — still being on the roster [for the game] and all that,” Jansen said. “But it’s such a great group of guys here. Definitely you never expect it or anything like that. So it took me a little bit.
“Talking with everybody, it was nice to have some extended time with people and chat with them. But it’s a special group of people here, top to bottom — players, staff. I’ve really, really enjoyed my time here.”
Of course, this is not the oddest thing Jansen experienced in the context of a new team.
On June 26, 2024 at Fenway Park Jansen was on the Toronto Blue Jays and batting seventh.
He was about to start an at-bat when heavy rain prevented the game from resuming and it got suspended until Toronto’s next visit to Fenway. He caught 15 pitches from Yariel Rodriguez and played 13 more games for the Blue Jays.
On July 27, 2024, he was traded to the Red Sox and played 14 games for his new team before the suspended game resumed. When it did, Daulton Varsho pinch hit for Jansen, who entered the game for the Red Sox when he replaced infielder Emmanuel Valdez.
“Everything that happens, you know, goes into the next thing, and you learn from it,” Jansen said. “Having gone through a trade last year will probably make this process a little bit easier for me going into a new team as a catcher learning pitchers and all that I’m so looking forward to the challenge and task at hand with that. I think having a little experience with that helps.”
The unique occurrence made Jansen the first player to appear for two teams in the same game. It is an event whose comparison might be what happened to Joel Youngblood on Wednesday Aug. 4, 1982.
Youngblood began the day with the New York Mets and hit a two-run single off Ferguson Jenkins in an afternoon game at Wrigley Field. After the Mets batted in the fourth, he was replaced by Mookie Wilson after finding out he was traded to the Montreal Expos while standing in the on-deck circle for his third at-bat in a game the Mets won to improve to 46-58.
After a 90-minute flight to Philadelphia, he joined the Expos and entered the game in right field for Jerry White in the sixth inning in a game Montreal lost to drop to 54-50.
An inning later, he hit an infield single off Steve Carlton, giving him a distinction of not only playing in two games on the same day. Just like earlier in the day, he was in the on-deck circle but this time it was when Hall of Famer Tim Raines flew out to end the game.
Standing in the on-deck circle and not getting the at-bats for differing reasons is quirky and so is getting hits off two Hall of Famers in possibly the most memorable of Youngblood’s 1,408 career games as an outfielder for the Reds, Cardinals, Mets, Expos, Giants and Reds.
There will be other interesting circumstances in the three remaining days before teams finish their roster machinations but Jansen remaining on the active roster after finding out he was traded remains highly unique for a frenzied time of the baseball season.