Baseball's biggest fish story

Sporting News, The, August 10, 1998 by Dave Kindred

Kenny Krahenbuhl is the catfish guy out of Mississippi. We call him the catfish guy because his minor league baseball team traded him for 10 pounds of catfish. Not that the team admitted it. The delivery of the fishy news was left to the Mississippifolks, and it went this way in the Greenville Bluesmen's locker room ...

"Who'd you trade to get me?" Krahenbutd asked.

"A couple players to be named later," assistant general manager Jeff Brown said, using the bushleague code for shoddy merchandise that may never be delivered.

"That's it?" said Krahenbuhl. He's a righthanded pitcher, 28 years old, a Roger Clemens-look-a-like, goateed, 6-2, 225 pounds, a survivor of three elbow surgeries still sweating in America's wooden ballyards for $5,000 a summer because he loves it. No other reason. He loves it even if he's eight years in and learns he's worth only junk to be named later.

Then Jeff Brown told Krahenbuhl that the deal with the Oxnard (Calif.) Pacific Suns included a sweetener.

"We also gave 'em 10 pounds of catfish," Brown said.

Causing Kmhenbuhl to say, "WHAAAAAT?"

And then, "You CANNOT be serious."

After which, "For CATFISH?"

Well, a baseball mystery has been cleared up. Before Kenny Krahenbuhl, we never knew how a man would react when traded for 10 pounds of catfish.

Two hours later, he goes out and pitches a perfect game against the Texas-Louisiana League's best team, the Amarillo Dillas.

"July 22, I'm traded," is how Krahenbuhl begins Baseball's Biggest Fish Story.

"I take four planes. From Los Angeles to El Paso to Houston to Jackson, Miss. I drive two hours to Greenville. I sleep a couple hours and go to the ballpark where they say they're working out the deal so I can pitch that night.

"Now it's two hours before the game and they tell me about the catfish. I'm hot. Any player that gets Waded for a couple fish is not going to like it. It's on my mind the entire game.

"Not only are the Dillas leading the league in hitting at .337, they re throwing the league's best pitcher against us. And the last two innings, it's a downpour, lightning's flashing. What a script, huh?

"Being traded for fish, pitching against the Dillas, my adrenaline is running, and I know I've got a no-hitter going. We've got a 1-0 lead and by the ninth there's water on the infield. Two outs, a guy hits a soft liner at our shortstop. That ball could have splashed off a puddle, but Ryan Johnson short-hops it and throws the guy out.

"My catcher, Bubba Griffin, jumps onto me and screams, `You just threw a perfect game.' I had no idea.

"Amazing. All these years, and now this, So the first thing I say to the media is, 'Take THAT, Oxnard.'"

Born in San Bernardino, Calif., the Cubs' 1990 ninth-round draft pick, Kenny Krahenbuhl has been on a long bus ride of dreams from West Virginia to Illinois, North Carolina to Minnesota, California to Washington to Mississippi a first time, to California again and back to Mississippi.

His best season: 8-5. His best ERA: 2.65. His arm ached most of the way. The three surgeries have removed bone chips, taken s 'car tissue off the ulnar nerve repaired a ligament. There were times he couldn't hold a water glass out of fear he'd drop it.

"If you let 'em know your arm hurth, they'd release you in a minute."

Let go by the Cubs on April 2, 1993, Krahenbuhl found himself in the independent leagues, those wildcat outfits with no connections to the major league organizations. Dispirited, he quit in 1904.

"I was burnt out." He and his girlfriend would have a child. He worked security at a hotel casino in Palm Springs, Calif., while, just to keep a hand in, he coached junior college baseball.

That's when he decided to try again, "I missed the game too much." He saw friends in the big leagues while he was nowhere. "It was the worst year of my life." On the junior college field one day, a thought occurred. "God, I can still play." So he did, even helping Greenville win pennants the past two seasons.

Now, only in America, only in baseball where a minor league catcher threw a potato past third base and waited to tag out the bamboozled runner with the real ball--maybe only in Mississippi where last year the Bluesmen traded a Muddy Waters blues album and 50 pounds of pheasant for a second baseman who became the league's playoff MVP--only in a land of dreams can a dreamer become "Catfish Kenny."

"Hey," Krahenbuhl says, "I may be getting an opportunity to do ca trot commercials. Seriously. And major league scouts have been showing up. So if another opportunity comes up in organized ball, great. But if not, I'm completely happy with my career."

After the perfect game, he lost a two-hitter "Two complete games, two hits, one walk, 17 strikeouts, an 0.50 ERA, the league's hitting .034 against me. People say `hi' to me at the grocery store. At the bank in California, I needed 10 forms of ID. In Greenville, I just hand 'em the check. I'm Greenville's big-leaguer"

He has done Good Morning America. David Letterman is up this week. Kenny Krahenbuhl laughs. "Without the catfish, I don't think I'm on Letterman, do you? I'm sucking it up."