CATCHING A GRAPEFRUIT DROPPED FROM A GREAT HEIGHT.

CATCHING A GRAPEFRUIT DROPPED FROM A GREAT HEIGHT. The news reports on catching a baseball dropped from a helicopter reminded me of a story I read in Baseball Digest in my youth. It’s about Wilbert Robinson, who played in the majors for 17 years, starting in 1886, and then managed the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1914 to 1937. This page from the baseball statistics website tells the story of Robertson’s attempt to top Gabby Street’s feat of catching a ball dropped from the Washington Monument. Robertson tried to catch a ball dropped from an airplane. The page says that: “…someone (many say it was Casey Stengel) substituted a grapefruit, which exploded on impact. With his eyes shut and his chest wringing wet, Robinson believed himself covered with his own blood until he heard his team laughing.”