A tragic end for minor leaguer traded for bats

Ask the most hard-core baseball fan about John C. Odom and most likely you’ll get a blank stare. Yet millions of people have heard of the slender right-hander. He was “Bat Man” or “Bat Guy” or “Bat Boy,” the minor league baseball player traded for 10 maple bats.

It became a big joke last May when word of the unusual swap jumped off the sports pages, and the former San Francisco Giants prospect went from pitcher to punch line. “People are like, ‘I’d kill myself’ and stuff,” Odom said at the time, dismissing any such notion.

Three weeks after the trade, he abruptly left the team.

Six months after the trade, he was dead.

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