Kevin Rhomberg

By Joe Brown
Love of Sports Correspondent

Unless you’re an Indians fan, chances are good you’ve never heard of Kevin Rhomberg.

He made his major league debut in 1982 and played his final game just two years later. During that time he appeared in only 41 games, but still managed to hit at an impressive .382 clip.  However, that’s not why you’ll remember Kevin Rhomberg after reading this.

This guy was one of the quirkiest players ever to lace up the spikes. Even more so than the superstitious Wade Boggs and Turk Wendell. He had a compulsive behavior that whenever somebody or something touched him he had to touch back, at all costs.

Anytime Rhomberg was tagged out on the base paths he would run back onto the field as the defense was heading to the dugout to touch the guy who tagged him out. This obsession obviously set him up to be the target of many pranks.

Teammates would often sneak up on him and tap him and then take off and hide. Kevin would spend hours searching for the person until he found them and touched them back.

Other pranksters were much more clever. After tagging Rhomberg with the ball the player threw the ball completely out of the stadium. Allegedly, he once spent two hours after the game during heavy traffic hunting the ball down.

Former teammate Don Rohn once thought he finally got him. He touched him and ran into the clubhouse to hide. “He looked for me for two hours,” Rohn recalled. “I was hiding under desks, in the shower, the bathroom. He couldn’t find me.”

Rohn was then able to sneak to his hotel room thinking he got away with it. At 3:00am he heard someone knocking on his door. Groggy and confused he stumbled to the door. “It was Rhomberg. He touched me and ran away.”

In my opinion, the funniest incident occurred with teammate Rick Sutcliffe. While Kevin was in the bathroom stall Sutcliffe reached under the stall and tapped him on the foot and ran off. This threw Kevin into a panic, as he didn’t know who did it. When he was done he ran through the clubhouse and touched every player in the room.

The guy’s a legend for every right reason, and that’s why we’re giving Kevin Rhomberg some Old School Love today.