Career
However, that same season he also became the first American League pitcher to give up a World Series grand slam home run when Chuck Hiller of the San Francisco Giants got hold of one in Game 4. One of the era"s most colorful characters, Bridges" nickname, as recorded in the Baseball Encyclopedia was "Sheriff". He was known as a teller of tall tales and an instigator or victim of elaborate practical jokes.
During 1963 spring training in a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, bar, a disagreement between Bridges and a female patron resulted in her shooting him in the legal
The resulting negative publicity annoyed the image-conscious Yankee brass and may have been a major factor in them selling his contract to last-place Washington on November 30, 1963. His recovery from the gunshot wound was apparently complete, but Bridges never regained the dominance that he had shown in 1962.
The 1965 Senators were Bridges" last stop in his major league career. Bridges died of cancer on September 3, 1990, at the age of 59 at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
