MLB Fun Facts Thread
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Volosaurus rex
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Does that strictly mean two HRs or at least two HRs? I know that Roberto Clemente, on May 15th, 1967, had four hits, including three home runs, and drove in all seven of the Pirates' runs in an 8-7 loss to the Reds. Roberto Clemente 1967 Timeline - BR Bullpen
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Volosaurus rex
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He was also caught stealing only FOUR times that year. He stole 45 and 44 bases in 1978 and 1979, respectively, and was caught stealing only four times in each of those years. He had 557 career stolen bases and was thrown out only 114 times. See Davey Lopes Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com. I wonder if anyone ever had a higher percentage of success among leading base stealers.
Volosaurus rex
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The Bambino accomplished something similar in 1927. Ruth "hit a line drive at Senators pitcher Hod Lisenbee, who jumped to avoid being hit. The ball nicked the underside of Lisenbee's thigh and, hit with tremendous power, took a huge hop when it landed just beyond the infield, bouncing over the head of center fielder Tris Speaker, who had been sneaking in hoping to pick off a runner on second (a favorite ruse of his). Ruth wound up with an extra-base hit. . . . Ruth had indeed managed the seemingly impossible feat of hitting a ball between a pitcher's legs and over the center fielder's head. Just not on the fly, and not for a homer."
Contrary to Ruthian mythology, Babe "never hit a pop-up so high that he was able to circle the bases before it came down (as advanced in the flimsy John Goodman movie, " The Babe," of a few years ago). But he did hit at least two triples in such a fashion" (Babe Ruth Myths | Ruthian myths don't stray far from facts BABE RUTH 100 YEARS - Baltimore Sun).
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Volosaurus rex
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Who hit the longest home run of all time? For a fascinating and detailed discussion of this topic, see "Long Distance Home Runs" by William J. Jenkinson, 1996 (Longest Home Run Ever Hit by Baseball Almanac). I won't reveal his conclusions, but I will share his comments on the Sultan of Swat: "t can be said that he defies rational analysis. Not only did he set distance records in every major league ballpark (including National League stadiums where he played only infrequently), he also set similar standards in hundreds of other fields, where he made exhibition and barnstorming appearances. Amazingly, many of those records remain unequaled, which is to say that Ruth is a true athletic anachronism. In virtually every other field of endeavor in which physical performance can be measured, there are no Ruthian equivalents. In 1921 alone, which was Ruth's best tape measure season, he hit at least one 500 foot home run in all eight American League cities. There should be no doubt about the authentication of these conclusions. Despite the scarcity of film on Ruth, we can still make definitive evaluations of the approximate landing points of all of his 714 career home runs.
Ruth played during the height of American's newspaper culture, when approximately 10 New York papers gave first hand accounts of each Yankee game. When you consider that the other baseball towns average about five comparable publications, it is clear that we can draw upon approximately 15 descriptions of most of the hundreds of four-base blows struck during his career. A suitable example can be identified in Ruth's classic Comiskey Park rooftopper on August 16, 1927. Fifteen writers from New York, Chicago, and other places emphatically stated that Ruth's fifth-inning drive cleared the 52-foot-wide grandstand roof by a considerable margin.
Although other sluggers occasionally reached the rooftops during Comiskey's long lifetime, the only other left-handed batter known to have flown the right-field roof was Detroit's Kirk Gibson in 1985. That magnitude of Ruth's accomplishment can be understood with the knowledge that, because home plate had been moved, the distance to the grandstand for Gibson was 341 feet, while for Ruth it was 365 feet."
And, yes, Jenkinson extensively discusses exaggerations associated with many gargantuan home runs, including some Ruthian shots.
Ruth played during the height of American's newspaper culture, when approximately 10 New York papers gave first hand accounts of each Yankee game. When you consider that the other baseball towns average about five comparable publications, it is clear that we can draw upon approximately 15 descriptions of most of the hundreds of four-base blows struck during his career. A suitable example can be identified in Ruth's classic Comiskey Park rooftopper on August 16, 1927. Fifteen writers from New York, Chicago, and other places emphatically stated that Ruth's fifth-inning drive cleared the 52-foot-wide grandstand roof by a considerable margin.
Although other sluggers occasionally reached the rooftops during Comiskey's long lifetime, the only other left-handed batter known to have flown the right-field roof was Detroit's Kirk Gibson in 1985. That magnitude of Ruth's accomplishment can be understood with the knowledge that, because home plate had been moved, the distance to the grandstand for Gibson was 341 feet, while for Ruth it was 365 feet."
And, yes, Jenkinson extensively discusses exaggerations associated with many gargantuan home runs, including some Ruthian shots.
Volosaurus rex
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The most legendary home run hit by Ruth allegedly occurred in an exhibition game played in Mobile, Alabama. Supposedly, the ball landed in an open car on a freight train that was travelling down the tracks beyond the outfield wall and the train "doesnt stop until it pulls into the rail yard in New Orleans where someone finds the ball. Thus the ball is hit in Alabama and ends up coming to a rest finally in Louisiana." For a deconstruction of this myth, see The Three State Home Run | Verdun2's Blog.
A similar version of this basic story line places Ruth and the Yankees in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for an exhibition game played in 1927. The story goes that The Great Bambino hit a homerun so deep and long from the Old League Park on North Clinton Street that it hit a passing freight train and rolled right out of town. Somebody, somewhere found a baseball and had no idea of its worth I am sure. No one can verify the homerun landed on that passing rail car, but it is still a very cool story indeed" (https://acpladult.wordpress.com/tag/fort-wayne/).
A similar version of this basic story line places Ruth and the Yankees in Fort Wayne, Indiana, for an exhibition game played in 1927. The story goes that The Great Bambino hit a homerun so deep and long from the Old League Park on North Clinton Street that it hit a passing freight train and rolled right out of town. Somebody, somewhere found a baseball and had no idea of its worth I am sure. No one can verify the homerun landed on that passing rail car, but it is still a very cool story indeed" (https://acpladult.wordpress.com/tag/fort-wayne/).
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Volosaurus rex
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Incidentally, based on Amazon.com reviews, it appears that Jenkinson has authored two fascinating and meticulously researched books on Ruth's home runs: Baseball's Ultimate Power: Ranking The All-Time Greatest Distance Home Run Hitters, which, as the title suggests, is a comparative work on the game's greatest power hitters (see Amazon.com: Baseball's Ultimate Power: Ranking The All-Time Greatest Distance Home Run Hitters (9781599215440): Bill Jenkinson: Books) and The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs: Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger [Kindle Edition], which is based on the 1921 season, a year in which he played a total of 207 games, including exhibition/barnstorming games.
Talk about a single-mined researcher; Jenkinson has devoted "nearly 30 years recreating all of Ruth's long drives, those counted as homers and those that may have just been [extremely long flyouts within stadiums that were much larger than today's ballparks]." Evidence presented within the context of a review for Baseball's Ultimate Power which would strongly support the argument that Ruth was the greatest power hitter in the history of baseball include the following observations: "Babe Ruth leads them all by a wide margin. He hit more 500' or longer home runs than anyone in the history of baseball. In fact, he hit more 500' home runs than the next five men combined. You want to argue if Ruth was the greatest power hitter in baseball, consider this one proof; of the 100 longest documented in-game home runs in the history of the sport, Ruth hit 29 of them. Of the 10 longest he hit 6 of them. Of the 5 longest, he hit all of them" (Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Baseball's Ultimate Power: Ranking The All-Time Greatest Distance Home Run Hitters).
Talk about a single-mined researcher; Jenkinson has devoted "nearly 30 years recreating all of Ruth's long drives, those counted as homers and those that may have just been [extremely long flyouts within stadiums that were much larger than today's ballparks]." Evidence presented within the context of a review for Baseball's Ultimate Power which would strongly support the argument that Ruth was the greatest power hitter in the history of baseball include the following observations: "Babe Ruth leads them all by a wide margin. He hit more 500' or longer home runs than anyone in the history of baseball. In fact, he hit more 500' home runs than the next five men combined. You want to argue if Ruth was the greatest power hitter in baseball, consider this one proof; of the 100 longest documented in-game home runs in the history of the sport, Ruth hit 29 of them. Of the 10 longest he hit 6 of them. Of the 5 longest, he hit all of them" (Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Baseball's Ultimate Power: Ranking The All-Time Greatest Distance Home Run Hitters).
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