The first batter that David Hale ’11 faced in his major-league debut Sept. 13 was San Diego’s Will Venable ’05. Hale struck out Venable and eight other Padres in five scoreless innings to set an Atlanta Braves franchise strikeout record for a first appearance by a pitcher. When Venable stepped to the plate in the first, Braves TV announcer Tom Glavine opined that it couldn’t have been said too often that two Princeton grads were squaring off against each other. In fact, Venable went 2 for 6 against Ross Ohlendorf ’05 when the latter pitched for Pittsburgh and Washington. Otherwise, no Princetonian has batted against another in the big leagues since records have been kept starting in 1916, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

Larry Schulz *82