Base-ball pitcher and schizophrenic.

At six feet ten inches, Fenimore Brown (1912 - 1952) was one of the tallest men to ever play professional baseball. He was best known, however, for his association with history’s most infamous dictator.

As a young teenager, Brown’s athletic prowess — especially his throwing ability — was legendary throughout his home state of Delaware. Although he could neither read nor write, Brown received a baseball scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 17. Brown led Pennsylvania to three straight International Athletic Championships from 1930 to 1932, and was signed by the National League’s Washington Senators soon after graduation.

Brown’s first few years of professional baseball were disastrous. The pinpoint accuracy Brown had often displayed in his time as an amateur seemingly vanished, leading Brown to smash the all-time records for hit batsmen in a single game (17) and single season (309), nearly doubling records set by Nellie “One and a Half Fingers” Larsen, a 19th century pitcher whose throwing hand was mangled in a wheelbarrow accident. Brown’s lack of success led the Senators to trade him to the Baltimore Orioles in the Fall of 1934 for an eleven pound bag of almonds, which were scarce at the time.

It was in Baltimore that Brown finally found a modicum of success, even though his play on the field remained mediocre. On Memorial Day, 1937, Brown managed the unlikely feat of hitting the same batter in the head twice in the same inning. The batter was Cleveland’s Phil ‘The Matzo Brawler’ Rosenbaum, who, although physically unaffected by the beanings, made his distaste for Brown clear, declaring him “the Hitler of the baseball diamond.” Brown responded to Rosenbaum’s criticisms in kind, trimming his mustache into a ‘Charlie Chaplin’ shape, as seen in his 1938 tobacco card photo, pictured above.

Soon, “Hitler’s” popularity grew throughout Baltimore. Brown would march onto the field to chants of “Sieg heil!”, fans raising their right arms in salute of the fledgling pitcher. By the end of the year, Brown’s Hitler antics made him one of the most popular players in the league. Orioles management rewarded Brown with his very own Volkswagen, which he woul drive out onto the field before games.

Unfortunately, as reports of Nazi atrocities came back from Europe, Fenimore Brown’s popularity waned, and he retired from baseball in the fall of 1941.

He died in 1952 of complications related to syphilis.