Ping Bodie
Ping Bodie was born on October 8, 1887. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Ping Bodie
Frank Stephen "Ping" Bodie (October 8, 1887 – December 17, 1961), born Francesco Stephano Pezzolo, was an American center fielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Chicago White Sox (1911–1914), Philadelphia Athletics (1917) and New York Yankees (1919–1921). Bodie batted and threw right-handed. He was born in San Francisco. Bodie was nicknamed "Ping" for the sound made when his fifty-two-ounce bat crashed into the "dead" ball of his era. Another nickname given to him was "The Wonderful Wop." He took the surname Bodie from the California town he once lived in. It said that Bodie provided much of the inspiration for Ring Lardner's creation of the famous baseball fictional series You Know Me Al. Appearing originally in the Saturday Evening Post, the piece was written in the form of letters written by a bush league baseball player to a friend back home.