On February 8, 1942, a group of major league baseball players traveled to Folsom Correctional Facility in California for an annual contest against the prison’s baseball team. In the seventh inning, with the prison team down 24-5, two inmates decided to make a break for it. The game was immediately suspended as a manhunt ensued. The inmates, Elvia E. Mead and Philip Gardner, cut a hole through a fence while the game was being played and swam down the American River for nearly three hours before they were caught. The game did not resume after the inmates were apprehended.
Cleveland Plain Dealer – February 9, 1942
