Why isn’t Gabby Williams playing in the WNBA?

It’s a question that Williams has had to reckon with too many times over the past four years, and one that is once again at the forefront after the former UConn guard’s dominant showing at the Paris Olympics. As Williams debates a return to the league she has played 135 games in since 2018, the barriers to her re-entry raise important questions about player agency in the WNBA and what changes the players union should prioritize as they decide whether to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement at the end of 2024.

Williams, who led France to a silver medal and averaged 15.5 points, 4.8 assists, and 2.8 steals per game during the Olympics, entered the 2024 WNBA offseason as an unrestricted free agent. She has been an ace perimeter defender throughout her professional career and has improved her ballhandling and shot creation while playing in Europe and could immediately step into a guard rotation for a contender.

But Williams has been an intermittent member of the WNBA since 2021. She couldn’t play that entire season and has dealt with prioritization challenges each of the last two years. The players union has a variety of priorities to address in a new CBA, including salaries, maternity protections (of particular importance after the Dearica Hamby lawsuit) and revenue sharing. The experience of Williams also shines a light on player agency and autonomy, and what sort of freedoms the players have earned after helping to build the league.

BEST of Xi’an 👑

Gabby Williams helped France 🇫🇷 sweep #FIBAOQT in Xi’an, while averaging 16.3 PTS, 4.0 REB, 2.7 STL and 19.3 EFF and claiming TISSOT MVP honours ⚙️ pic.twitter.com/UALfRCwPCe

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— FIBA (@FIBA) February 12, 2024

During the 2024 offseason, rather than sign with a team, Williams opted to spend the first half of the season preparing for the Olympics. Since she retained her status as a free agent and finished her European club season before May 1, Williams isn’t restricted by the WNBA’s prioritization clause, which requires players competing internationally to report at the start of the WNBA calendar (even if their overseas team is still playing) or else be suspended for the season. She could choose to play out the remainder of the season stateside provided a team has a roster spot and cap space available. Even with the WNBA trade deadline on Tuesday, Williams is likely the most impactful addition a team could make before the end of the regular season.

However, as originally reported by Rachel Galligan on X and confirmed by The Athletic, Williams is considering whether to return to the WNBA this season because of how that decision would impact her options in 2025. If Williams simply elects to eschew the WNBA in 2024 (she already has a contract to play for Turkish powerhouse Fenerbahçe for 2024-25), she will once again be an unrestricted free agent in the 2025 offseason and have full control over where she plays in the league next year. However, if she signs for the rest of the season, that team would have the opportunity to core Williams and thus retain her exclusive negotiating rights for 2025.

WNBA teams have the opportunity to designate a free agent as a core player during the offseason. The player can subsequently only negotiate with said team as a free agent and is guaranteed a one-year, supermax contract unless the two parties agree on a deal with different terms or a trade.

The purpose of the core provision was to give teams the ability to protect their investment in a player. After drafting, developing and investing in a player, the core gives franchises another mechanism to keep top talent in their organizations. However, it also by definition reduces player freedom, which has inadvertently been the story of Williams’ WNBA career.

In 2021, Williams was set to miss part of the season to compete in EuroBasket and the Tokyo Olympics for France. Although she anticipated being able to return stateside once her international commitments were complete, the Chicago Sky suspended her for the full season, meaning she wasn’t paid her WNBA contract. In 2023, the prioritization clause would have prevented Williams from suiting up for the Seattle Storm because her French season ended after the start of the WNBA calendar. She only ended up being able to play for the Storm because of an unexpected coincidence; she got a concussion in France, thus prematurely bringing her European season to a close and clearing her to be available for Seattle.

Now, Williams finds her autonomy threatened by another CBA provision: the core.

Williams’ case challenges the theory of the core provision. She isn’t a franchise player. If she returns to the WNBA, it will be to a team that didn’t draft her and hasn’t given her any marketing money because she’s always overseas during the offseason. A team’s only investment in her would be the $20,000 or so it will pay her for about a dozen regular-season games to close out the season. And for that limited stretch, a team would be able to control where she plays in 2025.

As the WNBA increases in scale, bringing in more revenue, the CBA still exists to protect the teams’ interests, not the players. Mechanisms like restricted free agency, a hard cap and the core depress players’ markets and ability to seek out situations of their choosing.

As a result, players are called upon to make tough decisions that often disincentivize their participation in the WNBA. Prioritization forces a choice between playing overseas and in the U.S., and overseas contracts often outpace what the best players can earn stateside. Elena Delle Donne was cored this offseason by the Washington Mystics, and the veteran is now sitting out despite reportedly expressing an interest to play elsewhere, so the WNBA is missing out on one of the final healthy seasons of a two-time MVP.

Williams could stay in France and bask in the glory of her silver medal for a month before reporting to Turkey. Instead, the decision to help a team chase a WNBA title could handcuff her, once again putting her WNBA career in the hands of an outside actor. The professional experience should be prioritizing players, not forcing them to rely on the promises and goodwill of organizations. The reason Williams isn’t playing in the WNBA is because she is trying to control her career, and the league’s CBA is trying to control her.

(Photo: Jean Catuffe / Getty Images)

Pate Tuilevuka could hardly believe what he was seeing. He was only at this tryout as a favor to an old friend, but it didn’t take long to realize he was watching someone special.

A person that big and that strong shouldn’t be that fast. That smooth. The possibilities felt infinite. The heights limitless.

Tuilevuka, the general manager of Major League Rugby’s Seattle Seawolves, thought that with a little training, Laiatu Latu could dominate. He reminded Tuilevuka of New Zealand rugby union legend Jonah Lomu. “Jonah was a huge, massive individual who had incredible speed and power,” Tuilevuka said. “So, as soon as I saw (Latu) … I just knew, ‘Aw shoot, this kid has all of that.’”

It was scheduled to be a three-day tryout, but Tuilevuka had seen enough after only a few drills. He was ready to sign Latu on the spot. But the 20-year-old couldn’t commit.

Latu liked rugby, and he was great at it, leading Jesuit High in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, Calif., to two national championships. His coach, Lou Stanfill, who helped set up the Seawolves tryout, described Latu as “clinically merciless.” If an opponent got between him and a scoring opportunity, Latu ran straight through their chest. If a player tried to score on him, Latu caved their chest in.

Of course we dug up Laiatu’s high school rugby highlights. 💥

(via @Hudl) pic.twitter.com/QsfJYla7nW

— Indianapolis Colts (@Colts) April 26, 2024

“He was a man among boys, especially in his senior year,” Stanfill said. “He was 6-foot-4, 250-260 pounds, could run, could hit, could jump. He could do everything and he was coachable in everything.”

But even though Latu could do it all on a rugby pitch, his heart belonged elsewhere. A neck injury he suffered at the University of Washington just months prior was supposed to keep him off the football field forever. But Latu wasn’t ready to accept that, so he turned down Tuilevuka and the Seawolves — and a potentially fabulous life.

“If Laiatu wanted to go play rugby, he would play overseas, and he would be a big name,” Stanfill said. “Everyone around the world would end up finding out who Laiatu Latu is.

“He would play here in the States for MLR. He’d get on the U.S. National Team, and then someone in France, England, New Zealand (would sign him). … He’d be making good money, living in France and playing great ruby.”

Instead, Latu defiantly rededicated himself to a sport that was supposed to be in his rearview mirror. “I told them that my passion is football,” Latu said of the Seawolves tryout. And three years after being told he’d never play football again, he became the first defensive player selected in the 2024 NFL Draft, his passion having become his livelihood.

The text sent shivers down Kerry Latu’s spine.

“Mom.”

None of her four children ever sent cliffhanger texts, so this one-word message from her oldest son gave her an ominous feeling. Soon, she was talking to Laiatu and Washington’s medical staff, trying to piece together exactly what had happened during an awkward practice collision with a teammate in November 2020.

Laiatu remembers it vividly.

“I tackled the running back, and right after that play everyone was still playing and running around because I did it pretty quick,” he said. “So when I turned around, my middle linebacker was running full speed and hit me in my face.”

Latu experienced numbness in his neck and extremities “for like 10 seconds” and initially thought he’d suffered a stinger. Trainers decided to keep him sidelined for the rest of practice out of an abundance of caution. It would be his last rep at Washington.

An MRI later revealed Latu had suffered a significant neck injury, the extent of which he has declined to specify publicly. He planned to sit out the remainder of a 2020 season already in disarray amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The family and university hoped his neck would heal on its own. But as the days, weeks and months went by, nothing improved.

“Eventually, the doctors were like, ‘I think we need to do surgery,’” Kerry said. “And from that point, the conversation started about medically retiring, and that was just gut-wrenching. … I thought maybe Laiatu was gonna have some say in it. But once they started talking about medically retiring him there was no looking back.”

Laiatu underwent neck fusion surgery in March 2021. Washington medically retired him in April.

“We would never want to put anybody in danger of possibly not being able to use his extremities the rest of his life,” then-Washington head coach Jimmy Lake said at the time. “We would never want that to happen to anybody.”

Lake added that the university consulted “five of the best specialists in the country, guys who have worked with different NFL clubs,” before choosing to end Latu’s career.

He was only 20, and he was devastated.

“I can’t imagine what he went through, because even I struggled with it,” Kerry said. “I kept thinking, ‘Not only is he a phenomenal football player, but he’s one of the most humble kids. I didn’t understand. Like, why is this happening to him?’”

It didn’t matter that Latu was weightlifting right up until the day before his procedure, even hang-cleaning a personal best 345 pounds. It didn’t matter that just two months into what was supposed to be a six-to-nine-month recovery, he picked rugby back up and was running and tackling with no issues. It didn’t matter that he was teaching himself pass-rush moves from YouTube videos while trying to flip his nightmare back into his lifelong dream.

“This one time he came to my office trying to explain to me how badly he wanted this,” said Ikaika Malloe, then Washington’s defensive line coach. “My doors are closed and I’m watching this kid break down in front of me. You cannot help but cry as well.”

Malloe remembers looking out his office window at Husky Stadium and often seeing Latu on the field training by himself. He wasn’t allowed to practice or work out with the team, but he prepared as if he was going to play every snap in Washington’s next game.

Malloe said he’s never seen someone as determined as Latu. But when Latu was fighting his way back to football, he wasn’t fighting alone. His coach and his family rallied around him because they knew how desperate he was for another chance.

When Laiatu’s then-8-year-old sister, Aulani, was assigned a school project that was supposed to be all about her. She was asked to fill in the blank: “If I had one wish, I would wish for …”

Her response? ” … my brother to play football again.”

My baby girl’s school project. ❤️😇 pic.twitter.com/FIimi8flWO

— Kerry Latu (@kerry_latu) August 26, 2021

When Laiatu resumed playing rugby in hopes of eventually returning to football, Kerry was a bit startled. All she wanted was for her son to heed the doctors’ orders and take it easy in his recovery, but there he was tearing through people on the pitch.

Each time Laiatu told her he was tackling with his surgically repaired neck, she tried to convince him to dial it back. Instead, he stepped on the gas. And when he wasn’t terrorizing opponents on the rugby pitch, he was ripping through imaginary foes on the football field.

Laiatu joked that his stubbornness was “the good kind,” and after a while, his unwavering self-belief pushed Kerry to do something that hardly anyone in Laiatu’s life was willing to do at the time: She listened. The two began having serious conversations about the possibility of reversing Laiatu’s medical retirement, and when he called Kerry in the spring of 2021 saying, “I’m not done,” she told him she wasn’t either.

Kerry never promised her son he would play football again. She just promised she would try to help.

She knew the outlook was bleak, “but as a mom, I don’t know, you just have this adrenaline in you,” Kerry said. “You want to make things better. You want your kid to be happy, and this is his passion. This is something he was good at. I didn’t think about it after that I just kind of went into go mode, and I just started searching.”

She sought out other football players who had significant neck injuries or conditions that threatened medical retirement but were able to continue their careers. Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones bounced back and became a first-round pick of the Steelers in 2017. Clemson wide receiver Justyn Ross is a member of the two-time defending champion Chiefs.

As Kerry researched and networked, one name kept popping up: Dr. Robert Watkins, who performed the neck fusion surgery that allowed Peyton Manning to continue his Hall of Fame career. Kerry gave Watkins a call in August 2021, and two weeks later, she and Laiatu were sitting in Watkins’ Los Angeles office. Kerry remembers spending three hours there as Watkins and his staff reviewed all of Laiatu’s medical records and had him undergo several tests before eventually coming to a decision.

When Watkins walked into the room, Kerry and Laiatu held their breath.

“I’m comfortable clearing you,” Watkins told them.

Laiatu immediately broke down.

“I had that moment in my brain every day, and I just wanted to work at being the best at football,” he said. “The fact that it got taken away from me and I got to come back; I really got to prove to people that you can do anything you set your mind to.”

Latu wanted to resume his career at Washington after he was officially cleared in September 2021, but the university chose not to reverse its decision to medically retire him, so he entered the transfer portal. A few schools showed interest, including Cal and Oregon State, but Latu wound up transferring to UCLA. Malloe had been hired by Chip Kelly in December 2021 and advocated for giving Laiatu a shot.

And if the Bruins had any questions about Laiatu’s neck surgery, one of their consultants just so happened to be Dr. Watkins.

Laiatu Latu racked up 23.5 sacks over his final two years of college at UCLA. (Ric Tapia / Getty Images)

Latu was finally able to resume his football career with the Bruins in 2022. He recorded a sack in a win over Washington he had circled on the calendar. But even that moment of redemption couldn’t compare to when Laiatu faced and beat his little brother, Keleki, in UCLA’s regular-season finale.

Keleki, a tight end at Cal, saw Laiatu on his darkest days. Their matchup – the first time they’d ever played against each other – was one of the brightest.

“We were laughing,” Laiatu said. “But it felt really good, too, because as the older brother, I always wanted to show him what success looks like and I wasn’t able to do that for a time. So, when I got back on the field it was like, ‘Damn, he can really look up to me.’”

Keleki said he’s always admired his older brother, even when he was medically retired, because Laiatu embodied dedication and perseverance. Now playing at Washington, where Laiatu started his college career, Keleki knows the odds of earning another snap against his brother in the NFL are slim. But if there is one thing he’s learned from Laiatu’s journey, it’s that the odds don’t matter.

“When he was playing rugby and continuing to work out, it just made me think, ‘It’s not his time (for football to end),’” Keleki said. “So knowing that, I just prayed to God to see if he could give him another chance to play. Because now that he has it, I know he can be one of the greats.”

It didn’t hit him on draft night. It didn’t hit him when he first tried on his Colts helmet. It didn’t even hit him after he bought his mom a new house.

The moment Latu’s status as an NFL player finally sank in came after an OTA practice. The gratitude bubbled to the surface, and he could feel his eyes welling up. “I was just walking back to the locker room and I just started bawling,” he said. “That’s when it really hit me, when I seen that Colts sign on the facility.”

Back-to-back stellar seasons at UCLA convinced Indianapolis’ front office to select him with the No. 15 pick. The expectations are high, but early on, Latu has thrived under their weight.

GO DEEPER

How star OLB Laiatu Latu masters the unique craft of pass rushing — and why

Since the pads came out during training camp, Latu has often doubled as starting quarterback Anthony Richardson’s shadow. The rookie has wrecked enough drives to make Richardson admit he’s tired of seeing him in the backfield.

“Just getting around the edge, it’s like, ‘Man, I’m trying to hit the receivers in stride,’ but he’s there in my face trying to make a play,’” Richardson said through a wry smile. “I’m glad we got him in practice so I can get used to stuff like that.”

Colts West Coast area scout Chris McGaha first saw Latu’s dominance on film. Then, during the pre-draft process, he saw the heart that drives it.

“Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to try to find, ‘Do they really love it?’” McGaha said after the draft. “But his (desire) was pretty easy to see, right? The things he had to go through, the things he had to overcome, it’s a unique story and a unique journey for him. It’s just a testament to him as a person, the kind of special makeup he has.”

The Latu family (from left: Keleki, Kerry, Aulani, Laiatu and Naite) pose on the field after UCLA and Cal met in the teams’ regular-season finale in 2022. (Courtesy of Kerry Latu)

Every now and then, Latu thinks about how different his life would be had he closed the door on football and opened it to rugby. He may be in France right now, fresh off an Olympic appearance. But while peering around the field after a recent Colts training camp practice, Latu took a deep breath and came to a simple conclusion about that life: “It just can’t beat this.”

The 23-year-old has a tattoo on his left hand: “Like your last,” his personal mantra since returning to football. He writes the phrase at the top of every page in his notebook during team meetings, always reminding himself of where he was and where he’s headed.

“I made it,” Latu said. “Through all of the trials and tribulations that I’ve been through in my life, I get to say that I’ve made it.”

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos: Ryan Kang, Christopher Mast, Todd Rosenberg / Getty Images)

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Everyone knows you can’t be in two places at the same time. Those are the rules — the immutable rules of physics.

Ah, but who knew you can play for two teams in the same baseball game? Those are also the rules — the wacky suspended-game rules of baseball.

So next Monday, if all the forces in the universe line up right, Boston Red Sox catcher Danny Jansen will go where no baseball-playing human has ever gone before. Not in the big leagues anyway.

In a week, he could become the first player in major-league history to appear in a box score for both teams in the same game. And here’s our plea to the forces in the universe: This needs to happen!

“Oh, man,” Jansen told The Athletic the other day. “It’s going to be nuts.”

For the last 54 days, since June 26, he has been stuck in the batter’s box at Fenway Park, frozen in baseball time. Not literally, of course. But this is baseball. So even as everything else around him has swirled in a million different directions, the box score of that game tells us he is still batting.

It was the second inning. He was hitting for the Toronto Blue Jays in Boston, with one out and a runner on first. He had just fouled off a first-pitch cutter. And that was when the weather gods decided it was time to mess with the baseball gods.

UPDATE: We are now in a rain delay ☔️ pic.twitter.com/M1BNJ2l3xF

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) June 26, 2024

So those raindrops turned into a rain delay. That rain delay turned into a suspended game. The resumption of that game was scheduled for Aug. 26. And then …

The trade deadline happened. And Jansen got traded, for the first time in his career — to the team the Blue Jays were playing that night, the Red Sox. So friends, history beckons. And also wackiness. We’re big fans of both.

So where could this be leading? What does it all mean? And are you sure this has never happened before? (Spoiler alert: Don’t be!) Let’s take a look.

So what happens next?

When this game resumes, we can guarantee one thing: Danny Jansen will not get to finish his at-bat. The suspended-game rule may be a little zany at times, but it isn’t that zany — not enough to allow a player wearing a Red Sox uniform to bat for the Blue Jays.

But here is where this could get fun — and historic. The Red Sox also need to change catchers. Reese McGuire, who was catching for them at the time, is on their Triple-A roster now, not their big-league roster. So if Red Sox manager Alex Cora is as astute as we think he is, we’re headed for one of the greatest P.A. announcements ever:

“Now catching for the Red Sox, Danny Jansen. Now pinch-hitting for Danny Jansen … fill in the blank, but who the heck cares!”

“Oh, man,” Jansen said, when we ran that scenario by him. “Such an oddity.”

It’s an oddity, all right. But it’s only possible because …

The suspended-game rule is the gift that keeps on giving

Of all the 14 gazillion rules in the baseball rulebook, the suspended-game rule has to be the most awesome. It makes so much weird and wild nuttiness possible, it’s the best rule ever.

It makes time travel possible. Thanks to this rule, Juan Soto managed to debut before his debut back in 2018. He arrived in the big leagues, with the Washington Nationals, on May 20. But he later played in a game that had been suspended on May 15 — and homered. Which means he debuted before he debuted and also homered before his first homer.

It makes team travel possible. Thanks to this rule, reliever Joel Hanrahan won a game for the Nationals while he was playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2009, he pitched a scoreless top of the 11th inning for the Nats on May 5. Then that game got a little slippery, in more ways than one.

It got delayed, suspended and finished two months later. But he’d been traded to the Pirates by then. So … yep. While he was hanging out in the Pirates’ bullpen in Miami, the Nationals rallied to win in Washington, so their winning pitcher was — who else? — Joel Hanrahan. What a magic trick.

It makes cloning possible. Thanks to this rule, Adam Duvall and Daniel Hudson once faced each other with two different teams, in two different games, on the same day. And now that we’re this deep into this section, that doesn’t even seem strange anymore, does it?

On July 21, 2021, the Miami Marlins were playing the Nationals. Duvall went 1 for 4 for Miami. Hudson pitched a scoreless eighth for Washington. But …

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, the Braves played the Padres that same day, in another game that would get suspended. By the time they resumed it in September, guess what had changed?

Duvall was a Brave … and Hudson was a Padre … and in the sixth inning of that game, Adam Duvall, the Brave, hit a home run off Daniel Hudson, the Padre … on the same day the box scores tell us they were also playing against each other in Washington. It’s right there in Duvall’s game log on Baseball Reference. Classic!

(screenshot from Baseball Reference)

So now that we have that fun preamble out of the way, back to Danny Jansen. It makes no logical sense that a player could get taken out of a game, and then, at the same exact moment, get subbed into that game for the other team. But have we mentioned that the suspended-game rule is inventive like that? Here’s what it says, right there in Rule 7.02:

A player who was not with the Club when the game was suspended may be used as a substitute, even if he has taken the place of a player no longer with the Club who would not have been eligible …

Yes!

Not that Jansen was intricately familiar with any of that when he got traded to Boston on July 27. But all it took was one day in his new clubhouse before he realized he was going to have to bone up on this thing — because those Boston writers had a lot of questions, about a feat he didn’t even know was possible.

“I didn’t know (much about this) at first,” he said. “I was like, ‘What — am I going to have to go on the other team?’ I didn’t know what was going to happen. It just kind of caught me off guard about the whole situation. Because when I got traded, it was just a whirlwind at first, and I didn’t think about it. But then, once that stuff settled, I heard about (the suspended-game scenario). And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool. That’s a unique thing that’s going to happen.’”

Ah, but how unique is it? Don’t answer too quickly, because there is, in fact …

Another living human who actually did this

Unless you were a big fan of International League baseball in the 1980s, you probably don’t recognize the name Dale Holman. But did you know he has several artifacts from his career that are currently housed inside the Baseball Hall of Fame?

True story. And why is that? Because in 1986, Holman did something that might sound familiar if you’ve read this far:

He played for both teams in the same game.

He started that game in June, playing right field for Syracuse. He finished that game on Aug. 16, playing left field for Richmond. Yes, we even dug up the box score.

But unlike the saga of Danny Jansen, who merely got traded from one team to the other, a bunch of stars had to line up for Holman to pull off his feat. He didn’t get traded. He got released. So that isn’t usually a surefire ticket to making history.

At age 27 and stuck in his fifth season in Triple A, he wasn’t even sure he’d get another job. Instead, he hooked on with the Braves’ Double-A team in Greenville, SC. He was still there a month later when the Braves’ Triple-A club in Richmond needed to find an outfielder in a hurry. Guess who got called up?

Naturally, just two days later, Holman’s new team was about to resume a suspended game with his old team, Syracuse. It’s safe to say there was a lot less buzzing about that momentous event than what Danny Jansen is experiencing. In fact, it almost went unnoticed, except …

That afternoon, a fortuitous lightning bolt suddenly hit Richmond infielder Paul Runge. Wait, he thought. Wasn’t the new outfielder in town playing for the other team when this game began?

“Until then, nobody had remembered it, even myself,” Holman told The Athletic when we tracked him down at his home in Miramar Beach, Fla. “But then Paul Runge did. I remember we were sitting in the clubhouse, and he said something about it. He said: ‘You’ve got to get in there!’”

So next thing he knew, Holman was in the lineup — and singled in his next two at-bats … against a team he was playing for as recently as the third inning. But that wasn’t even his biggest claim to fame.

In the second inning, when he was still in the Syracuse lineup, he’d smoked a two-run double … against Richmond. So not only had he played for both teams, he’d gotten a hit for both teams in the same game. And even nuttier, he got credit for driving in the winning run against the team he was playing for when that game ended.

This sounds more like a Brockmire script than something that unfolded in real life. But nearly 40 years later, it’s keeping the legend of Dale Holman alive. And even he’s amazed that anyone is remotely aware of any of this.

“It’s just one of those crazy things,” he said. “It could have happened to anybody, but it happened to me. I was in the wrong place at the right time, or whatever.”

If it happened today, he’d probably have turned into a TikTok folk hero pretty much instantly. But this was 1986 — a time without Tik-ing, Tok-ing or tweeting. So it’s a miracle that word of this incredible feat made it beyond the Richmond city limits.

“I really don’t think anything would ever have been known about that, if not for a woman in our office (in Richmond), and she sent something in to USA Today,” Holman said. “On the front page of their sports, they used to have a little column that was something like ‘Today in Sports.’ So they had a little paragraph about it.

“Then the next Saturday, one of my old roommates called me and said: ‘I’m watching the (NBC) Game of the Week. And I just heard Joe Garagiola mention your name about playing in a game for both teams.’”

That was about as viral as Holman’s spectacular feat got at the time. But luckily, along came Jansen to inspire hard-working media outlets like us to dust off the archives and bring it back to life. So no wonder the first words out of Holman’s mouth, once we connected, were: “I got your message. I was excited to talk to you.”

So here’s an idea. Let’s try the first-ever…

Danny Jansen vs. Dale Holman Tale of the Tape

For nearly 40 years, Holman has had this space all to himself. As best as even longtime minor-league historians can tell, the Two Teams in the Same Game Club consisted of only one man — him. So we were curious: Was he rooting for Jansen to join him or not?

“Well, he can’t join me,” Holman said, cheerfully. “He didn’t get a hit (before changing teams). You know, that’s the deal. So he can go ahead and play for three or four teams in a day. It doesn’t matter.”

We relayed those words to Jansen. He found them pretty amusing.

“He’s not wrong,” Jansen said, laughing. “I mean, I ended my day with the Blue Jays 0 for 1 — no, wait. I’m 0 for 0, and down, 0-1, in the count. So I didn’t get a hit for both sides.”

Yes, if that’s the big category — getting a hit for both teams in the same game — Holman has that niche wrapped up. But now let’s make the case for Jansen, assuming he gets put in the lineup as the catcher when this game resumes.

First off, he’s doing it in the big leagues. So that’s one massive checkmark on Jansen’s side.

Second, Jansen started this at-bat as the hitter — and he has a chance to finish it as the catcher. So who the heck has ever batted and caught in the same at-bat in a game? Nobody. Obviously. So what’s the cool factor in doing that?

“Ooh,” Jansen said. “That would be very cool.”

Then he had a question for us: If the pinch-hitter goes in for him and strikes out, “does that go on my stats? … Because if it did, I was thinking we’re going to have to get that guy to roll one over to third base.”

But the answer to that is: Nope. Since there was only one strike, whatever happens in this at-bat will get credited to the pinch-hitter. Jansen seemed relieved to hear that.

Except what if he’d seen one more pitch in that game before the rain hit? What if there had been two strikes on him instead of one? Then he would have had a chance to do some really weird stuff. He could have caught the third strike of a strikeout of himself.

“Wow,” Jansen said. “That would be wild.”

Or what about this even wilder thing that could have happened. (Hat tip to loyal reader Frank Mercogliano for this one.) If there were two strikes instead of one, and then Danny Jansen the catcher wasn’t able to hold onto the pitch that struck out Danny Jansen the hitter, he could have theoretically tagged himself out. Or that’s how the official play-by-play annals of baseball would have described it, anyhow.

“That’s so funny to think about,” Jansen said, laughing again. “Good thing it’s all theoretical, right?”

Wait. There’s more. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Jansen would get credit for playing one game for the Blue Jays and also one game for the Red Sox in the same game. But he would only get credit for one total game played. So when does one plus one equal one? Only in baseball!

And maybe even more strange, here we have video evidence that Jansen set foot in the batter’s box for the Blue Jays in this game … and has been stuck there for the last seven weeks, technically speaking. But he will not get credit for a plate appearance for the Blue Jays. Don’t believe your eyes, friends. It’s baseball!

It’s as strange but cool as it gets, all right. But just when we thought we had Jansen convinced his feat would be way bigger than Holman’s, Jansen actually leapt to the defense of Dale Holman, Mr. 3-for-3 himself (for two different teams).

“Yeah, but three knocks, though,” Jansen said. “It’s going to be tough to top that.”

All right. Props to them both. Because what everyone needs to contemplate here is that …

Moments like this reverberate through baseball history

Holman is the first to admit he’s not the most luminant star in the baseball cosmos. But you should know that he did have his moments. He once hit .344, with a .908 OPS, in the Texas League. He was once on a Syracuse team that played a 27-inning game and a 23-inning game in back-to-back weeks, leading shortly thereafter to his pro pitching debut. He’s in the Louisiana Tech Hall of Fame. But also …

“You’re a baseball guy,” he told us. “Research this one.”

He then told a tale from his time as a roving instructor in the Braves’ system. He was visiting their South Atlantic League team when all sorts of bizarre stuff began to happen. So in a span of four games, he had to step in as a manager, a coach, an umpire and even a player, thanks to various ejections, illnesses and emergencies.

Has anyone else ever done that? he asked. Hard to say. But at least Danny Jansen hasn’t.

Still, Holman understands that nothing about his career is remembered as vividly as that fabled game in Richmond where he was so mixed up in the exploits of both teams that when it was over, “I didn’t know whose hand to shake.” It’s almost four decades later. And here we are, still talking about this. Amazing.

So what would Dale Holman like to tell Danny Jansen as his two-team moment approaches?

“I don’t know how his career will play out. You know what I mean?” Holman said. “But it kept my name in the news for a few decades. And I wouldn’t be known otherwise. I started out my baseball career as a prospect with the Dodgers. But then everything faded after that. So (this game) kept me in the news.

“So with him,” Holman said of Jansen, “with the way the internet is now, it’ll be all over the world. So even if he doesn’t start that game for Boston, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way to get him in there for an at-bat or to catch an inning, or whatever. I mean, they’d be crazy not to.”

But is that what’s going to happen? Alex Cora hasn’t tipped his hand. So we may not know until the lineup gets posted.

For most of his time with Boston, Jansen has had a lot more to focus on than becoming the answer to one of baseball’s greatest future trivia questions: Who’s the only guy to play for both teams in the same game? But would he love to wind up as that answer? Who wouldn’t?

“It’s pretty cool,” he said. “It’s a cool thing to be part of something that lives on and is just a rarity, something that does not happen very often at all. That would be awesome. You know, I try to be in the moment as much as possible. But one day, if this happens, it’s going to be a cool thing regardless … but especially later on. It’s going to be a cool thing to look back on.”

And how would he explain to his grandkids someday how it’s even possible to play for both teams in the same game … in the major leagues?

“Baseball is incredible,” he said. “It’s always incredible. You can’t expect that anything in baseball can’t happen. Anything’s possible.

“This game,” said Danny Jansen, “is nuts.”

(Photo: Getty Images / Danielle Parhizkaran/The Boston Globe)