Bob Dill

Robert Edward Dill (April 25, 1920 in Saint Paul, Minnesota – April 16, 1991) was an American professional ice hockey player. Dill played professionally in the American Hockey League alongside NHL Hall of Famer Eddie Shore for the Springfield Indians, in the United States Hockey League for the St. Paul Saints and in the National Hockey League for the New York Rangers.

Throughout his hockey career, Bob Dill was considered an intense, but clean player with an aggressive style of play. While with the New York Rangers, Dill's battles with Montreal Canadiens great Maurice "Rocket" Richard became the stuff of legend. For instance, Dill's attempts to intimidate Richard and his teammates left him on the losing sides of dramatic physical confrontations with the newspapers unable to resist the pun in the resulting news stories as in "Dill pickled." and more recently, he was depicted in the 2005 French Canadian film, The Rocket. Dill was portrayed in the film by the then-active NHL forward Sean Avery.

Bob Dill was also a star baseball player with the AAA Minneapolis Millers baseball team. A minor league team of the New York Giants, the Millers organization was the "stopping point" for Ted Williams, Willie Mays and many other greats on their way to the "majors."

Dill was sought by the Giants Major League Baseball organization to play baseball in the major leagues. Had Dill played for the Giants baseball team, he would have been the first (and only) American to play both NHL hockey and Major League Baseball, and probably the first "two sport" player in American professional sports history. The proposed contract was nixed, however, by the New York Ranger hockey organization because the schedules of the two sports overlapped. In that era, the NHL contracts (and professional sports contracts in general) were more restrictive, and with players having far less latitude for making career decisions than they do today.

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