Just another strange day for John Boozer

The Phillies’ John Boozer

Apparently not amused with what he sees, plate umpire Ed Vargo ejects Philadelphia Phillies reliever John Boozer before he ever gets a chance to pitch 56 years ago today in a game at Shea Stadium.

Boozer's crime: throwing spitballs during his warm-up pitches before starting the seventh inning of a game the Philadelphia would lose 3-0 to the New York Mets on a Thursday night at Shea.

Vargo also ejects Phillies manager Gene Mauch for openly encouraging Boozer to keep throwing spitters during his warmup tosses with a confused crowd of 9,795 looking on.

Acting, well, weird is nothing new for Boozer.

During his 12 seasons in pro baseball from 1958-69 Boozer earns a reputation for, among other things, trying to use his mouth to catch a wad of chewing tobacco after spitting out the same wad just nanoseconds before.

Boozer also has a penchant for eating bugs while sitting in the bullpen.

“He would bite grasshoppers in half, stick the back half under his tongue and let them hop out of his mouth,” onetime Phillies reliever and former Boozer teammate Dick Hall later tells author Bob Cairns.

“And he would eat moths and all kinds of insects. He was always spitting tobacco on the bullpen ceiling. He’d do lovely things,” Hall says. “Boozer had a habit of wiping the rubber off with his fingers to get it clean, and then would go to his mouth to clean his fingers.”

Oh, as for the game on this day in 1968 at Shea Stadium, the winning pitcher for the Mets is a 21-year-old rookie from Alvin, Texas, named Nolan Ryan.

The victory is Ryan's second in the majors with 322 following in a Hall of Fame career that lasts until 1993 – seven years after Boozer passes away from cancer at the age of 47.