Baseball has always been a game of numbers. Batting averages. ERAs. Home runs. Strikeouts. Card numbers. Print runs. Population reports. But on August 19, 1951, one of the most famous numbers in baseball history was not a statistic. It was a uniform number. 1/8. That was the number worn by Eddie Gaedel, the 3-foot-7 pinch hitter sent to the plate by St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck in one of the boldest, strangest, and most debated promotions Major League Baseball has ever s