OT: 46 years ago today I saw the greatest HR in my lifetime
What was the most impressive home run you ever saw?
Mine was at the 1971 All Star game held at Tiger Stadium that featured some of the greatest players ever assembled: Rose,Mays, Bench, McCovey, Aaron, Stargell,Carlton, Seaver, Brock , Clemente, Yaz, Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Carew, Killebrew, Kaline and it just went on and on ...a total of 26 future HOFers !
In the bottom of the third, a young Reggie Jackson, was sent to pitch hit and sent a pitch into orbit off Doc Ellis. The ball was RISING as it hit the light transformer on the top of the right field roof. It has been estimated to have traveled 539 feet had it not hit the transformer. Ernie Harwell said it was the hardest hit ball he ever saw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2D9mBNnpUY . I will embed below.
The first MLB game I saw in person had Staub and Thompson go back to back to beat the Yankees. When I first read your post I thought you were talking about this game, but I think mine was 1976. Then again, I can't trust my memory on details like that any more.
One thing I find amusing about my first "in person" game at Tiger Stadium: it was also the first game I saw in color. We had a black and white TV. I still remember how awestruck I was at how colorful the field and stadium were.
greatest home run I saw was Derek Jeter off of David Price for career hit 3,000. Also at game when Bonds hit #60 in 2001 as part of week prior to Michigan game at Washington I went to Dodger game Sunday vs Cardinals (last season McGwire), Padres game Labor Day Monday as Bud Smith Cardinals threw a no hitter. Tuesday saw Jeff Suppan of KC had no hitter broken up with 2 outs in the 7th. Would have been great to see back to back no hitters. Wednesday at Oakland (vs Baltimore Ripken's last season) and I believe San Francisco at night as Oakland was day game. Thursday went to SF game again (day game) and Bond's hit his 60th of the season. Seattle game Friday as Paul Abbott of Seattle lost no hitter with one out in the 6th vs Baltimore. Great Seattle team. Brett Boone set AL record for most home runs in a season by a 2nd baseman, with 33. Ichiro set team record for most hits in a season (215) and this was only Sept 7th. He also set MLB record for most singles by a rookie in a season with 178. Great week of MLB games. Sorry to go off topic from home runs.
however, seeing Ortiz included w/ some of the all-time greats of the sport makes me ill. Steroid-infused, can't run or throw, and never plays the field. Probably will make the HOF. DH, rhoids and the resultant situations like Ortiz played a big role in my loss of interest in the game.
I guess you either love him or hate him......
I hate this shitting on the DH rationale. You're going to penalize a guy for a position that was created by the league? You don't think they would have put him at first base if the DH didn't exist? Mariano Rivera rarely ever hit and served one role. Should he not be in the HOF?
Edit: In addition, Ortiz hit 90 of his career 541 homeruns before 2004. Which is when the MLB starting suspending players for juicing. Ortiz never served a suspension.
Just throwing out facts here. I think there is a large difference between the two...
After joining Red Sox Nation in the last 1950s and living in the shadows of Fenway Park for seven years from the last month of the 1967 season through the end of the 1974 season, in the days when there was free admission to the bleachers after the sixth inning, I waited for a day that I never thought would happen in my lifetime . . . and then came the 2004, 2007 and 2013 World Series championships.
And before that 2013 World Series championship, there was this moment that came days after the Boston Marathon bombing, when close relatives of mine were across the street from where the bombs exploded.
MGOToykyo has written the dumbest post I have ever read on this site.
The triple decker in like, 91? 92? That was epic.
Greatest home run I saw was when I was coaching my son's baseball team and he hit his first ever over the fence home run - just happened to be in the last inning of the championship game to complete a 6 run come back for the win. (Not the longest or most impressive home run I've seen but it is the most improtant one I've seen and the one I will never forget.)
It's not one that I saw, but my father-in-law saw Babe Ruth's homerun in the 1933 All-Star game. His uncle took him, his brother, and cousin. He said most fans thought of the game as a gimmick, so there was no problem getting seats, and nobody thought it was a big deal at the time.
against the Cubs. By championship win probability, it was the 3rd biggest homerun in MLB History. http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2016/11/all-time-most-pivotal-plays-in…
2 outs, 2-2 count, a 35 year old hitter at the plate. Just an absolutely incredible moment.
I'll take David Ross's last at bat
April 17, 1976 - The wind was blowing out at Wrigly Field, and my high school friends and I made the unusual choice to not sit in the cheap bleacher seats. We missed the hail of balls in the bleachers (and over the wall), but got to see a whale of a game. The Cubbies were sitting comfortable up 13 to 2 in the 4th, but lost in 10 innings to the Phillies 18 to 16, largely due to Mike Schmidt. He went 5 for 6, 8 RBI, and hit 4 consecutive home runs, including one in the 10th. A total of 39 players appeared in the game, including 13 pitchers. We got our money's worth.
He became the third player after Aaron and Mays (at the time) to reach the 500 HR, 3,000 hit club. It was the one year anniversary of Ripken's 2131, and there was a rain delay so his last at bat before midnight. Was there with my dad and maybe 5,000 fans left in the park, and it was the loudest I'd ever heard Camden Yards. I was in middle school at the time and hated that Camden Yards played "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" for the 7th inning stretch and usually had a "No More Jon Denver" sign spelled incorrectly. That night I brought a "petition" which was a piece of poster board that said "No More Jon Denver" that I got people to sign. Because of the rain delay I had more time for signatures and as everyone got drunk waiting for the rain delay people got into the petition. I got the Oriole Bird to sign, found later signatures from Papa Smurf, Paula Abdoul, and Michael Jackson. Also had a guy yell "That John Denver's full of shit". Now I actually like the song and the tradition.
Living near Toronto, mine would be Joe Carter's HR to win the world series.
Clemente vrs Lolich was classic. I was too young to see Mantle and Mays, but Clemente was the best all around player I have seen. No roids back then but those guys did it all, playing through injures and man could they hit bombs too.
Great write up of that '71 AS game here: https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2013/07/16/71-all-star-game-at-tig…
Clemente's distinct style of power hitting was a thing of beauty:
I haven't seen any truly significant home runs in person, but a long time ago my family and I went to CA for vacation and our first stop was San Francisco. I couldn't have been older than 8-9. My dad took me over to Oakland to see an A's game. The Giants were still playing at Candlestick Park, and this was back when McGwire and Canseco were playing for Oakland, so of course we wanted to go see those guys play.
I remember watching McGwire come up to bat, and he just frickin killed the ball. Had to have landed somewhere in the upper decks of the Coliseum. I was just a kid at the time and I had no idea what was allowing him to hit the ball so well, but I was just awestruck that a man could hit a ball that hard and send it that far.
The other one I remember is seeing the White Sox come to Tampa to play the Devil Rays (they were still the Devil Rays at that time). Tampa was an embarrassment of a team playing in a stadium that continues to be an eyesore and overall insult to the game of baseball. I saw Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas come up to bat. Even from far away he was a monster among mere mortals. Crushed the ball so hard it hit the top of the dome, and if memory serves, that counts as a HR.
It was about the no hitter that he threw when he was high on LSD. He claimed that he never pitched a game sober in his career. He was a retty good pitcher (good, not great). Makes you wonder what he could have done if he had taken his career more seriously.
"Ohio State’s star quarterback confronted one of his biggest fears the last time the Buckeyes met Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
Rod Gerald was out of cocaine.
Struggling with a bum back and a small fracture in his leg, he remembers popping three pills of Tylenol with codeine that January night in 1978. But Gerald felt lost without the countering effects of cocaine. By then, he said he needed the stimulant to perform.
He snorted until his nose bled during a trip to Southern Methodist University, then kept the drug in his wristband during the Michigan game. "
Yes, Bobby Fick. He hit the last home run (a grand slam no less) at Tiger Stadium on 09/27/99 and I was there. It was a towering shot that slammed off of the right field roof.
Another thing I remember about that night is that after the game they had a bunch of former Tigers take the field. They would call out their name the player would run on the field to his old position. One of the players was Ron LeFlore. I remember reading the paper the next day that said he was met by police and coming off of the field and taken into custody for back child support. Authorities knew he was going to be attending and alerted police. I actually think it was a class move to arrest him afterwards instead of before. He absolutely deserved to be arrested and dp the time for his crime, but as a fan who saw him at my first Tiger game in 1977, I was happy to see him have a brief moment.
I checked the FAQ for how to embed, but got a page unfound for the html guide, so I'll have to settle for a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5-dfYtgeI
Seen live: Kevin Mitchell hit a line drive homerun that dented a wall behind the homerun fence at old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnatti. (It would have been Sosa hitting one out of Minute Maid, at the time Enron, field in Houston but that was all steroids driven)
Seen on TV: Kirby Puckett ending Game 6 of the World Series after his leaping catch against the fence the previous inning maintained the tie.
A couple runner ups:
McGwire once hit one off Randy Johnson at the old King Dome. Unfortuantely, that ballpark was so cavernous you really couldn't get a gauge for how far it had been hit. Again steroids.
Andre "The Hawk" Dawson, once hit one out of Wrigley which continued to roll down the street after it landed. Probably will forever be the record for longest distance traveled.
With my grandpa may he RIP.
I've never seen anything like that blast. From where I was sitting it looked like the ball just kept rising and hadn't even reached its apex when it hit the light standard. Unforgettable.
my late dad - on his birthday. This post brings back wonderful memories. Happy birthday (yesterday) pops!
Dad took me to Game 5 in '68 (famous for Willie Horton gunning down Lou Brock when former Michigan TE Bill Freehan WOULD NOT let Brock reach the plate). Took me to the ASG in '71 too.
Best of all, I was able to take him to a WS game in '84.
Ah, Tiger Stadium (aka Navin Field and Briggs Stadium) - what a great place!
Great gramps saw Ty Cobb play there
Gramps saw Greenberg and Ruth
Pops saw Kaline and Mantle - and took mom on first date to a double header
I went to dozens of games with pops, and befriended one of those green-suited ushers outside the stadium who would always set me up with first row seats if I got there early enough.
Can still hear the echo of the paper cups being stomped in the stairwells...
Can still hear the echo of the paper cups being stomped in the stairwells...
http://m.mlb.com/sf/video/topic/24420796/v25507619/nym-sf-bonds-blasts-first-homer-into-mccovey-cove
One of the more impressive hits by a righty was probably Mark McGwire hitting one 500+ feet in SF. A woman in an A's jersey was heckling him consistently and then he absolutely crushed one to right-center, the deepest part of the park, and put it in the last row of the seats before it would have gone out of the park entirely. She was quiet for the rest of the game and shrugged sheepishly once he'd finished his trot :<)
Also saw Albert Pujols come into a game as a pinch hitter in the 8th and absolutely crush one to win the game.
Another one that sticks in my head is watching Vladimir Guerrero take a ball off his shoetops into Mount Davis (the deep center-field bleachers) at the Oakland Coliseum.
For some reason when I saw HR in the headline my first reaction was that it stood for Human Resources and I was very confused haha.
46 years!
I guess that means when my mind tells me that I don't feel any different than I did at 18, It's lying to me.