Inside-the-park home run
In baseball parlance, an inside-the-park home run, "leg home run", or "quadruple", is a play where a batter hits a home run without hitting the ball out of play.
Discussion
To score an inside-the-park home run, the player must touch all four bases (in the order of first, second, and third, ending at home plate) before a fielder on the opposing team tags him out. If the defensive team commits an error during the play, it is not scored as a home run, but rather advancing on an error. [1]
In the early days of baseball, with outfields more spacious and less uniform from ballpark to ballpark, inside-the-park home runs were common. However, in the modern era, with outfields less spacious, the feat has become increasingly rare, happening only a handful of times each season. Today an inside-the-park home run is typically accomplished by a fast baserunner hitting the ball in such a way that the ball bounces far away from the opposing team's fielders.
Statistics
Of the 154,483 home runs hit from 1951–2000, 975 (about 1 in every 158) were inside-the-park. The percentage has dwindled over the years with the growing propensity toward power hitting and smaller parks.
Career records
Single season records
- Major League (and National League) – Sam Crawford – 12 – 1901[2]
- American League – Ty Cobb – 9 – 1909[2]
Single game records
- Major League and National League – Tom McCreery – 3 – 1897[2]
- American League – 17 tied – 2[2]
In the World Series
Rare occurrences
- Ed Delahanty of the Philadelphia Phillies, on July 13, 1896, hit four home runs in one game (itself a rare feat), two of which were inside-the-park home runs. This event is the only time any homers in a four-homer game have been inside-the-park.[3]
- Jimmy Sheckard hit inside-the-park grand slams in consecutive games on consecutive days in 1901 with the Brooklyn Superbas (later the Brooklyn Dodgers), the only person in Major League Baseball history to do so.
- Pete Milne hit an inside-the-park grand slam for his only career home run on April 27, 1949. It gave the New York Giants an 11–8 lead over the Brooklyn Dodgers,[4] which was also the final score.[5]
- On July 25, 1956, Roberto Clemente became the only MLB player to have ever scored a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam in a 9-8 Pittsburgh Pirates win over the Chicago Cubs, at Forbes Field.[6]
- Johnnie LeMaster hit the only inside-the-park home run to be recorded in a first career MLB at-bat on September 2, 1975 off of future Hall of Famer Don Sutton.
- On August 27, 1977, Texas Rangers teammates Toby Harrah and Bump Wills hit back-to-back inside-the-park home runs, the only time this feat has ever occurred in a Major League Baseball game. Prior to that, MARV RICKERT and EDDIE WAITKUS accomplished the same feat for the Chicago Cubs on 6/23/46.
- On May 26, 1997, Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs hit an inside-the-park home run in the top of the 6th inning in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the bottom of the same 6th inning, Tony Womack of the Pittsburgh Pirates also hit an inside-the-park home run, marking the unusual occurrence of opposing teams both hitting an inside-the-park home run in the same inning.
- On June 17, 2007, Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers hit a popup to center field that became an inside-the-park home run when Minnesota Twins outfielder Lew Ford lost the ball after it struck a speaker on the ceiling of the Metrodome. Fielder weighed 262 pounds at the time, and became the 3rd heaviest player to hit an inside-the-park homer.[7] On June 19, 2008 he added a second inside-the-park-homer at Miller Park in Milwaukee versus the Toronto Blue Jays.
- Ichiro Suzuki is the only player to ever hit an inside-the-park home run in an All-Star game;[8] he hit one in San Francisco in 2007, when he, playing for the victorious American League All-Stars, earned Most Valuable Player honors.
- Emilio Bonifacio, Florida Marlins third baseman, in 2009 became the first person in 41 years to hit an inside the park home run on Opening Day. [9]
- Kyle Blanks of the San Diego Padres on August 18, 2009 against the Cubs became the heaviest player to hit an inside-the-park home run at 285 pounds.
- Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles hit a two-run inside-the-park homer against the Washington Nationals May 22, 2010 after Nationals center fielder Nyjer Morgan threw down his hat and glove in disgust upon believing the ball cleared the wall on a failed jumping attempt to catch it. It was the first time since Minnesota in 2007 that two inside-the-park home runs occurred in the same ballpark in the same week, the first being Angel Pagan's just a few days before.
- On July 18, 2010, Jhonny Peralta, of the Cleveland Indians, hit a three-run inside-the-park home run when Detroit Tigers outfielder Ryan Raburn crashed through the bullpen fence while trying to catch the ball. Peralta was one of the slowest runners currently on the Indians’ roster, and would eventually be traded to the Tigers that year.[10] He took 16.74 seconds to round the bases, which was, at that point in the 2010 season, the slowest of any inside-the-park home run and slower than five regular home run trots.[11]
Inside-the-park grand slams
An inside-the-park grand slam is the same event but, like a grand slam, features the bases loaded for an inside-the-park home run. There have been 224 inside-the-park grand slams in Major League Baseball history, 26 in the past 50 years, and only eight since 1990 (as of 1 August 2011 (2011 -08-01)[update]). Honus Wagner has the most in MLB history with five. The most recent player to hit this feat was Omir Santos of the New York Mets on March 7, 2010, against the Washington Nationals, but this was during the preseason. [12]
References
- ^ Major League Baseball Rule 10
- ^ a b c d e f g Inside The Park Home Run Records by Baseball Almanac
- ^ 4 Home Runs in One Game – Baseball-Almanac.com
- ^ Pete Milne home run log at Baseball Reference
- ^ 1949 Giants results from Baseball Reference
- ^ Walk-Off Grand Slams
- ^ [1]
- ^ Brock, Corey (2007-07-10). "Ichiro runs into record book". MLB.com. http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070710&content_id=2080667&vkey=allstar2007&fext=.jsp. Retrieved 2007-07-10.
- ^ http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal/2009/04/dunnbonifacio.html?wprss=nationalsjournal
- ^ http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Peralta-goes-inside-the-park-after-Raburn-falls-?urn=mlb,256638
- ^ http://www.wezen-ball.com/tater-trot-tracker/tater-trot-tracker/tater-trot-tracker-july-18.html
- ^ [2]
External links