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We know Barry Bonds hit a realllllll lonnnngggg home run at Yankee Stadium last Saturday. What nobody seemed to know was howwwwww lonnnnngggg it was.
Well, Bill Jenkinson knows.
Jenkinson has devoted his life to the study of long-distance home runs. So he can tell us that Mickey Mantle hit a slew of home runs into the right-field upper deck at Yankee Stadium -- including a fabled 535-foot bolt off the roof façade that Mantle said was the hardest he ever hit a baseball.
And Bill Jenkinson can tell us that Ted Williams, who was a visitor to The Stadium, hit 13 home runs into that right-field upper deck.
But most important, Bill Jenkinson can tell us that the 385-foot estimate the Yankees tossed out there on Bonds' home run -- into the 20th row, Section 31 -- was "ridiculous."
In fact, that ball would have traveled between 460 and 465 feet had there never been a 20th row of that upper deck, Jenkinson says. And that would make it the longest home run to right field at The Stadium in over a decade.
Here is Jenkinson's list of the longest Yankee Stadium home runs of the last 15 years:
492 feet: Jay Buhner, Mariners, July 25, 1991 -- over the left-field bullpen.
480 feet: Sam Horn, Red Sox, Sept. 28, 1987 -- 22 rows deep into the bleachers in right-center.
478 feet: Dave Winfield, Yankees, Aug. 18, 1988 -- beyond the monuments in left field.
475 feet: Mickey Tettleton, Tigers, April 22, 1991 -- 12th row, at the center-field end of the right-field upper deck.
465 feet: Fred McGriff, Blue Jays, June 8, 1987 -- almost in the same spot as Bonds' homer, ultimately sailing down the exit ramp in Section 31.
464 feet -- Mark McGwire, A's, April 11, 1997 -- perhaps the longest "black-seats" homer of the modern era.
And by the way, Bill Jenkinson can also tell us that Babe Ruth never hit any upper deck homers in the House That Ruth Built -- because he forgot to build an upper deck back then.
And a couple of other Barry Bonds-Yankee Stadium home run notes:
This was not the first time anyone had ever hit his 588th homer at The Stadium before. Babe Ruth hit his 588th there on July 17, 1931, against the St. Louis Browns.
And how, you ask, did Willie Mays and Hank Aaron do in their first trips to The Stadium? Mays went 0-for-4 (batting seventh) in Game 1 of the '51 World Series, as a rookie, against Allie Reynolds. (Mays eventually homered in the 1960 All-Star Game there.) Aaron went 1-for-4 against Whitey Ford in Game 1 of the 1957 Series. (He later homered in Game 6.)
Useless interleague information
No one has ever had back-to-back multihomer games in a World Series. So when Derek Lee had back-to-back two-homer games against the Twins on Sunday and the Royals and Monday, he was only the second player in history to have two straight multihomer games against the opposite league. The other, according to the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent: Scott Rolen, on July 18-19, 1999, against the Devil Rays.
Omar Vizquel just had his second career multihomer game. Neither has come against a team from his own league. (They've come against the Reds and Mets.)
No National League hitter has ever thumped two home runs in the same game off Roy Oswalt. But Terrence Long did it last weekend in Oakland.
The Phillies made five road trips this year against teams from their own league and won a total of five games. Then they played six games on their first trip to play the other league (to Detroit and Cleveland). And how many did they win? Five.
For only the second time in history, the two incumbent rookies of the year got to play against each other this season, when Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols met in Seattle. The only other time it happened was 1998, when Scott Rolen and Nomar Garciaparra had a rookie-of-the-year reunion in Boston.
Ichiro went 0 for his first 11 against the NL this year, after hitting 119 points lower against the NL last year (.243). His career average against AL teams: .368 (313 for 850). Versus the NL, through Wednesday: .255 (25 for 98).
The Cardinals have played 58 games against their own league this season and lost none of them by 10 runs or more. But the Mariners beat them, 10-0, in their fourth interleague game of the year. In fact, the Cardinals have lost only one of their last 153 games against NL teams by 10 runs. But they've lost two of their last 21 games against the other league by 10 or more.
Pedro Martinez and John Burkett are a combined 14-0 against their own league. Then the Diamondbacks came to town. They're now 0-2 against the other league.
And all these players have more home runs this year against the other league than their own league: Matt Franco, Ramon Vazquez, Jared Sandberg, Raul Ibanez, Carlos Baerga, Orlando Merced, Miguel Cairo, Brian Roberts and Rod Barajas.
In other useless info ...
In case you haven't been paying much attention to the All-Star voting, you're missing one of the most bizarre and fascinating voting results in years. Who's the No. 6 vote-getter among NL outfielders, behind Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Vladimir Guerrero, Lance Berkman and Moises Alou?
Why, it's Armando Rios, of course.
Despite his hefty 0-homer, 9-RBI numbers, Rios had 184,000 votes as of this week. Which is more than Luis Gonzalez, Gary Sheffield, Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, Jim Edmonds, Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn, Juan Pierre or Cliff Floyd.
For that matter, Rios' slightly better-known teammate in Pittsburgh, Brian Giles, hasn't even gotten enough votes to show up in the top 15. Got a theory on this? We'd love to hear it. Foul play is suspected, but when in doubt, blame it on Rios.
Does this sum up the beauty of baseball, or what? Last month, the White Sox became the first team in more than half a century (since the 1950 Philadelphia A's) to lose two games in one season by 19 runs or more. And how long did it take until another team did it? Exactly 25 days, when the Indians lost a 23-2 game to the Twins to go with their earlier 21-2 loss to the Angels.
Meanwhile, just giving up 20 runs in a game twice in one season is a feat in itself. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the only other teams since 1990 to do it are the '99 Rockies, the '96 Tigers and the '96 Marlins.
Only two teams have ever given up 20 runs three times in one season -- the 1901 Reds and 1929 Phillies.
Then you had the Phillies, a team that scored 18 runs in one game (June 2) -- and got shut out the next game.
According to Elias, they're only the fourth team in the last 16 years to get shut out after scoring that many runs the previous game. The others:
2000 Tigers (won 18-6 June 20, lost 6-0 June 21)
1998 Giants (won 18-4 Sept. 19, lost 1-0 Sept. 20)
1986 Giants (won 18-1 June 23, lost 3-0 June 24)
Benny Agbayani has always had a chance to carve his own unique slice of grand slam history. It just took him until last Wednesday to finish it off.
When he hit a grand slam against the Dodgers on June 4, he became the first man ever to launch a big-league slam on two different continents. He also hit one in Japan for the Mets against the Cubs to kick off the 2000 season.
When Curt Schilling (11-1) matched up with Pedro Martinez (7-0) last Saturday, their combined 18-1 record represented the second time since 1929 that two pitchers with records that good had started against each other (minimum: combined 15 decisions) -- and the first time in more than three decades.
The five other times it had happened since 1900, according to the Elias Sports Bureau:
May 28, 1971: Sonny Siebert (8-0), Red Sox vs. Vida Blue (10-1), A's
July 8, 1929: Johnny Morrison (6-0), Dodgers vs. Burleigh Grimes (13-1), Pirates
June 21, 1926: Lee Meadows (7-0), Pirates vs. Flint Rhem (11-1), Cardinals
June 11, 1904: Joe McGinnity (14-0), Giants vs. Bob Wicker (5-1), Cubs
June 4, 1904: Joe McGinnity (13-0), Giants vs. Jack Harper (7-0), Reds
Jamie Moyer is the owner of the big leagues' best winning percentage since 1996 (.695). But he hadn't thrown a complete-game shutout since 1998 until Monday, when he did it against the Cardinals. In between, he racked up 53 wins.
That broke his own personal record of 51 (between July 19, 1993 and April 6, 1998). But it isn't even close to the longest streak among active pitchers. The man with that streak, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's Kevin Hines: the Giants' Kirk Rueter, who is up to 86 wins since his last shutout (Aug. 27, 1995).
Roger Clemens has thrown 120, 124 and 130 pitches in his last three starts. Last time Clemens threw 120-plus three starts in a row: Aug. 21 (137), Aug. 27 (138) and Sept. 1, 1999 (126) -- in his 23rd, 24th and 25th starts as a Yankee.
Just when you thought this schedule was more orderly than in previous years, consider this weird development: Mark Buehrle has made six straight starts at home, while pitching every fifth day. And because the Cubs' schedule is normally the opposite of the White Sox schedule, Kerry Wood has made six straight starts on the road -- meaning he has made two starts in both Milwaukee and Houston since his last start at Wrigley Field.
And Frank Castillo just made back-to-back starts against the two World Series teams from last year, the Yankees and Diamondbacks. That used to be just about impossible, but quite a few pitchers started against the Yankees and Mets back-to-back last year, according to Elias.
Humidor power: It took until the 30th game at Coors Field this year for any visiting team to score in double figures. Here's how many games it took the previous five years:
2001: Game 4
2000: Game 2
1999: Game 4
1998: Game 1
1997: Game 7
As recently as 1999, the visitor scored 10-plus runs 10 times in the first 30 games. So where can we get one of those humidors, anyway?
The Dodgers got shut out in the final 33 innings of the 1966 World Series against the Orioles. Then they went to Baltimore last Friday and got shut out for the first eight innings by Rodrigo Lopez before finally scoring in the ninth. So in between runs, the Dodgers were shut out for 41 straight innings by Moe Drabowsky, Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker, Dave McNally and Rodrigo Lopez. The runs on either end of that streak were scored by Paul Lo Duca and Sweet Lou Johnson.
There's something very cool about the fact that when Arizona came to Fenway last weekend, the Red Sox gave Mike Morgan the same locker he had when he gave up Carl Yastrzemski's 400th homer -- 23 years ago.
Russ Branyan -- owner of the second-worst strikeout-to-hit ratio in history (behind only the legendary Dave Nicholson) -- didn't strike out in his first four games and 16 trips to the plate as a Red. As an Indian, he had almost twice as many whiffs (294) as hits (160).
The top five in the More Strikeouts Than Hits Derby (among players with as many hits as Branyan):
PLAYER K HITS K/HIT
Dave Nicholson 573 301 1.90
Russ Branyan 294 160 1.84
Tom Egan 336 196 1.71
Melvin Nieves 483 284 1.70
Rob Deer 1,409 853 1.65
The Yankees lead the American League in homers, with 105 (through Wednesday). The Diamondbacks lead the National League in homers, with 76. At one point this month, the Yankees were on pace to outhomer the NL home run leader by almost 100. And Elias' Ken Hirdt reports that only twice has one league's champ ever outhomered the other league's swat champ by 100:
1947: Giants (NL) 221, Yankees (AL) 115 -- plus 106
1884: Chicago Nationals (NL) 142, Columbus Colts (Amer. Assn.) 40 -- plus 102
The incredible Ichiro now has eight double-digit hitting streaks since Opening Day 2001.
It's the 30th year of the DH era. And according to Elias, only one American League pitcher came through his first 12 starts of any season with a lower ERA than Derek Lowe had this year (1.81). That was his buddy, Pedro, in 2000 (1.67).
There's a good reason Yankees rookie Marcus Thames was the first player ever to homer off Randy Johnson in the first at-bat of his career: Thames was only the fifth player ever to make the first plate appearance of his career against the Big Unit. Not only did the other four not homer, none even hit a fair ball:
2002 Marcus Thames, Yankees, HR
2000 Brian Cooper, Angels, K
1999 Melvin Mora, Mets, Foul out
1998 Mark Little, Cardinals Walk
1998 Mark DeRosa, Braves, K
If you're keeping track of those Cheapest Saves of the 2000 standings, you may have noticed Boston's Chris Haney saved an 11-0 win last Wednesday, thanks to the miracle of the all-forgiving save rule.
That does tie teammate Rolando Arrojo for Cheapest Save of 2002 (Arrojo saved a 14-3 win April 16). But the Elias Sports Bureau reports it was still four short of the clubhouse leader in the Cheapest Saves of the 2000s competition.
Todd Erdos, then of the Padres, saved a 16-1 game on Aug. 22, 2000. (Most people remember that game as The Night Derek Bell Pitched -- and we use the term, "pitched," loosely.)
It isn't easy to get fired when your team is on a three-game winning streak, but if it's any consolation to Buck Martinez -- who had it happen to him in Toronto after a sweep of the Tigers -- he isn't the first. On Aug. 25, 1991, the Elias Sports Bureau reports, the Angels fired Doug Rader after a sweep of the Red Sox and replaced him with Buck Rodgers. Talk about passing the Buck.
Curt Schilling's walkless streak ended Saturday -- after 166 consecutive hitters. Schilling may have finished 123 hitters short of Greg Maddux's amazing NL-record streak of 289 last season, But Schilling did prove how incredible his streak was for a power pitcher. He struck out more hitters in his streak (56) than Maddux did in his (53).
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, they're the only two pitchers in the last 10 years to pile up 50 strikeouts or more between walks.
What will happen when the Tigers meet Schilling on Friday? All free passes will be suspended. That's what.
The Detroit Free Press' John Lowe reports that the Tigers just went from the fifth inning Saturday until the fourth inning Wednesday (34 innings) without a single batter drawing a walk. Then they broke the streak with an intentional walk to Robert Fick.
In their 13-game homestand, the Tigers walked exactly 13 times. That's three fewer walks than Barry Bonds drew by himself in the same period.
There's only one Vladimir Guerrero. His game-winning home run off Keith Foulke last Saturday came on (what else?) the first pitch. It was the 185th home run of his career. And, as Booth Newspapers' Danny Knobler figured it, 63 of them (34 percent) had come on the first pitch.
But when the Expos moved on to Detroit on Monday, Guerrero found himself pitted against a guy who has even outhacked him on the first pitch. The Tigers' Randall Simon has hit nine of his 21 homers (43 percent) on the first pitch.
After the Yankees intentionally walked Barry Bonds with two outs in the ninth inning Sunday and first base occupied, Joe Torre said he remembered once intentionally walking Ted Simmons with two outs in the ninth -- to pitch to Bobby Bonds.
Sure enough, ESPN research maven Mark Simon pored through the old box scores and found that Torre did just that, as Mets manager -- on May 28, 1980.
From our Junior Circuit Dept.: Last weekend, Arizona's scintillating Junior Spivey became only the second visiting player since 1973 to hit an inside-the-park home run at Fenway Park. Both of them, the East Valley Tribune's Ed Price reports, were by Juniors -- since the other was by the legendary Junior Felix, on June 2, 1989.
But Felix hangs onto the title via the best-quote tiebreaker rule. That inside-the-parker kicked off a three-homer, 11-RBI series, after which Felix was asked what he thought of Fenway. His unforgettable answer: "Is that what they call this place?"
Useless readers information
Reader Ryan Rockers, of Eden Prairie, Minn., reports that the Twins did something Monday that is really hard: They won a game in which they failed to score a run in 13 straight innings. They scored five runs in the first off Greg Maddux, then didn't score again until the 15th -- and beat the Braves, 6-5.
Russ McGinley observes that Sammy Sosa is on a pace to hit 60 homers but drive in only 111 runs. Which puts him in danger of breaking a record no one wants to break: fewest RBIs by a 50-homer man. The leader board:
110 -- Brady Anderson (50 HR) in 1996
112 -- Willie Mays (52 HR) in 1965
113 -- Mark McGwire (52 HR) in 1996
119 -- Greg Vaughn (50 HR) in 1998
Reader Chris Correnti wonders whether the Mets' one sacrifice fly through the entire month of May is some kind of record. Got us. But the Elias Sports Burea reports that they were the first team to hit that few SFs in a month of that many games (28) since the 1998 Brewers also hit just one in 28 games in August.
Reader Ron Bown points out what a strange 11-hit game the Braves had against the Rangers last Saturday. Those 11 hits were divided up by just three players -- Garry Sheffield (4-for-5), Andruw Jones (3-for-5) and Darren Bragg (4-for-4). Which meant the Braves got 11 hits in a game in which six of the nine slots in their lineup went a combined 0-for-25. Hard to do.
Reader Joel Leet noticed how close Barry Bonds' hits (now 59) and runs (now 53) totals were and wondered if any player has ever had more runs than hits in a season. The correct answer, among 100-run scorers since 1900, is yep -- but only one:
With the help of Lee Sinins' fabulous sabermetric encyclopedia, we found that Max Bishop scored 117 runs on just 111 hits in 1930. Closest calls since:
PLAYER YEAR H R
Rickey Henderson 1996 112 110
Eddie Joost 1949 138 128
Finally, heads-up reader Will Morris alerts us to a spectacular record that could fall this year. Rafael Palmeiro is up to 459 career homers _ without ever having led his league in any season in an otherwise-distinguished career. So he needs to hit only 17 more (to reach 476) to break the record for this sort of thing, held by Stan Musial, who made the Hall of Fame anyway.
The Sultan's Corner
If you count All-Star Games and World Series games, no player in history had hit more home runs than Barry Bonds (587) before hitting his first homer in Yankee Stadium. So the Sultan of Swat Stats, SABR's David Vincent, put together this list of how many career home runs the 500 Homer Club hit in parks other than Yankee Stadium (in the regular season):
PLAYER CAREER YANKEE STADIUM OTHERS
Hank Aaron 755 0 755
Willie Mays 660 0 660
Barry Bonds 589 1 588
Frank Robinson 586 2 584
Mark McGwire 583 15 568
Harmon Killebrew 573 22 551
Mike Schmidt 548 0 548
Willie McCovey 521 0 521
Jimmie Foxx 534 18 516
Ernie Banks 512 0 512
Eddie Mathews 512 0 512
Mel Ott 511 0 511
Ted Williams 521 30 491
Eddie Murray 504 14 490
Reggie Jackson 563 85 478
Babe Ruth 714 259 455
Mickey Mantle 536 266 270
Among the group with no regular-season homers in the Stadium, only Aaron hit a World Series homer. Mays and Mathews hit All-Star Game home runs there.
Even if he hadn't launched his career with a home run off Randy Johnson, Marcus Thames would have made a name for himself -- by adding his name to the Sultan's list of Players Who Homered On the First Pitch of Their Career:
Walter Mueller: 5/7/1922 PIT NL off CHN
Clise Dudley: 4/27/1929 BRO NL off PHI
Eddie Morgan: 4/14/1936 SLN NL off CHN
Bill LeFebvre: 6/10/1938 BOS AL off CHA
Clyde Vollmer: 5/31/1942 CIN NL off PIT
Sam Vico: 4/20/1948 DET AL off CHA
Chuck Tanner: 4/12/1955 MIL NL off CIN
Bert Campaneris: 7/23/1964 KC AL off MIN
Brant Alyea: 9/12/1965 WAS AL off CAL
Don Rose: 5/24/1972 CAL AL off OAK
Al Woods: 4/7/1977 TOR AL off CHA
Jay Bell: 9/29/1986 CLE AL off MIN
Junior Felix: 5/4/1989 TOR AL off CAL
Jim Bullinger: 6/8/1992 CHN NL off SLN
Jay Gainer: 5/14/1993 COL NL off CIN
Esteban Yan: 6/4/2000 TBA AL off NYN
Chris Richard: 7/17/2000 SLN NL off MIN
Gene Stechschulte: 4/17/2001 SLN NL off ARI
You've gotta love Angels mighty mite David Eckstein. His three grand slams this year represent 75 percent of his season total (four) and 38 percent of his career total (eight). Here's where he stands on those lists, according to the Sultan:
Fewest homers in season with 3 slams
Rod Carew, 1976 (9)
Shane Spencer, 1998 (10)
Joe Rudi, 1979 (11)
Don Lenhardt, 1952 (11)
Fewest Career Homers to Hit 3 Slams
Jim Tabor 7
Russ Derry 7
Herm McFarland 7
Frank LaPorte 8
David Eckstein 8
Dom Dallessandro 9
Brian Johnson 10
Shane Spencer 10
Shortstops with 3 Slams in Season
Ernie Banks 5, 1955
Ray Boone 4, 1953
Alex Rodriguez 3, 1996
Alex Rodriguez 3, 1999
Miguel Tejada 3, 2001
David Eckstein 3, 2002
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.
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