Call me Bert

Dagoberto Campaneris makes his major league debut 59 years ago today and he makes it a good one as the Kansas City Athletics’ shortstop homers twice off Minnesota's Jim Kaat in a 4-3 victory over the Twins in 11 innings at Metropolitan Stadium.

Campaneris – call me Bert – homers off Kaat in his first at-bat to give the A’s a 1-0 lead in the first inning and then again off the future Hall of Famer in the seventh with a two-run drive to tie the score at 3.

Until this game, only Bob Nieman in 1951 had hit two homers in his debut – a mark since matched by Mark Quinn in 1999, J.P. Arencibia in 2010 and Yasmani Grandal in 2012.

A year later, in 1965, in an effort to boost sagging attendance in Kansas City, the A's make Campaneris the first player in major league history to play all nine positions in the same game.

In that game, the ambidextrous, but normally right-handed, Campaneris pitches left-handed to the California Angels' Albie Pearson – and walks him – in the eighth inning of a game the A's eventually lose 5-3 in 13 innings.