Inside-the-park home run
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In baseball parlance, an inside-the-park home run is a play where a hitter scores a home run without hitting the ball out of play.
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[edit] Discussion
Inside-the-park home runs are rare events, generally occurring only a handful of times during any given season. The play requires both a fast base runner and often some sort of fielding mishap by the defense, or a strange bounce in the outfield. If the fielder commits an error during the act, however, the play is not scored as a home run, but rather advancing on an error. The classic situation is when two outfielders collide on their way toward receiving a ball hit to the warning track; the missed ball then bounces first off the track and then low off of the fence high and far away from the fallen fielders. Another situation is when the ball tips off of the glove of a diving fielder away from the other fielder.
[edit] Statistics
Of the 154,483 home runs hit from 1951 - 2000, 975 (about one in every 158) were inside the park. The percentage has dwindled over the years with the growing propensity of smaller parks.
[edit] Career Records
- Major League - Sam Crawford - 51
- National League - Tommy Leach - 49
- American League - Ty Cobb - 46
- Major League post 1950 - Willie Wilson - 13
[edit] Single Season Records
[edit] Single Game Records
- Major League and National League - Tom McCreery - 3 - 1897
- American League - 17 tied - 2
[edit] Rare occurrences
- Jimmy Sheckard completed a phenomenal feat in 1901, hitting inside-the-park grand slams in consecutive games on consecutive days with the Brooklyn Superbas (later the Brooklyn Dodgers). Sheckard is the only person in Major League Baseball history to do so.
- Ed Delahanty of the Philadelphia Phillies, on July 13, 1896, hit four home runs in one game (itself quite a rare feat), two of them were inside-the-park home runs. This event is the only time any homers in a four-homer game have been inside-the-park.
- Ed Konetchy hit two inside-the-park home runs in one game on August 5, 1912, and Twins shortstop Greg Gagne hit two inside-the-park homers in the Metrodome on October 4, 1986.
[edit] 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 40 inside-the-park grand slams in Major League Baseball since 1950 and only eight since 1990 (as of 2002). Honus Wagner had the most in MLB history with five.
[edit] References
- β 4 Home Runs in One Game β Baseball-Almanac.com
