They’ve been playing major league baseball more than 150 years, and nobody has ever done this before.
The kid hit a 449-foot homer to center on his first MLB pitch – and he was just getting started. He didn’t merely hit three homers in the game; he did it in his first three plate appearances!
Two previous players had homered in their first two at-bats. One was a solid ballplayer, but the other was a career minor leaguer whose first two major league at-bats were little short of miraculous.
* Bob Nieman stayed in the majors 12 years after he accomplished the feat in 1951. He was a good hitter (.295 lifetime with an OPS+ of 132), but he never made the all-star team, and never reached as many as 75 RBI in a season.
* An obscure catcher, Keith McDonald, did it in 2000. His entire major league career consisted of only 9 at-bats, although he did add one more homer before he headed back down to Memphis. Three homers in nine at-bats gave him a lifetime slugging average well over 1.000! That performance was a total fluke. He kicked around the minor leagues for 13 years and averaged only six homers per year! In fact, he hit more homers in his 9 major league at-bats than he did in an entire season in the Florida State League in 1996, when he had 410 at-bats!
You’d think that homering in your first two at-bats and a lifetime average of .333 with SLG of 1.333 would entitle you to more than 9 at-bats, no matter how bad you played otherwise.
I thought similarly, i.e. why not ride the hot streak, like the Braves rode Bob “Hurricane” Hazle in 1957. Sure, the Braves knew that Hazle’s lifetime batting average was .265 in triple-A, but they weren’t going to send him back down when he was hitting over .500. Ya gotta ride that wave! (He ended up hitting over .400 with an OPS higher than Mathews or Aaron.)
By the way, Keith McDonald’s last two at-bats were in 2001 and he was hitless, so the tally for 2000 alone was three homers in seven at-bats. I’d have had that mofo starting until he crapped out.
I could understand it if was the end of the year, or if both of their regular catchers were the second coming of Bill Dickey, but that wasn’t the case. It was early in July, the team was in the thick of a pennant race, and the starting catcher had an OPS+ of 71. Keith McDonald, on the other hand, had a slugging average above 1.700, but they sent Old McDonald back to the farm (team). E-I-E-I-O.
What more could the guy have done to earn a spot? It’s like a real life version of my dad’s claim that he had to take a pay cut for only hitting a ground-rule double.
Would be interesting to find out how McDonald felt about it. He was like the mirror opposite of Moonlight Graham.
Why would you pitch to him a third time?
Hilariously, all three homers were off Matthew Boyd. I don’t know whether insanity runs in the family of Boyd, or the manager, or both.
Since Matthew Boyd was gone when Baez got his fourth appearance, Baez officially has a perfect lifetime line of 1.000/1.000/4.000 against Boyd. The coveted five thousand OPS.
The reliever also chose to pitch to the kid, and “held” Baez to a hard liner which could easily have turned into a double, but was right at the left fielder.
Especially with the same pitcher.
But his third at bat was one on with nobody out, and the Cubs were trailing. Too early in his career to give him the Barry Bonds treatment.
Here’s something even more incredible about Nieman, McDonald, and Báez: They all make their debuts for St. Louis teams (Nieman with the Browns and the other two with the Cards). What are the odds of that?
Even stranger, what are the odds that the St. Louis Browns of the 1950s had a guy who could reach the fences? I’m surprised they didn’t replace him on the roster with a midget, just to maintain the Browns’ perfect record of zero competent hitters. That scenario is not so far-fetched. Nieman’s two homers happened the same year as the Gaedel incident. Nieman came up in September while the Gaedel game had been in August, meaning Gaedel had already been banned by the very humorless president of the American League. Hell, that ban might have allowed Nieman to fill a roster spot. Equally fortunate for Nieman was the fact that the team didn’t make him wear Gaedel’s number 1/8. Given the usual financial condition of the club, they could have chosen to save a few bucks by altering the little fella’s uniform instead of buying a new one.
(The Browns’ average attendance was less than 4,000 per game, which wasn’t surprising for a 100-loss team that had to compete for ticket sales with Musial and the storied Cardinals.)
Of course I’m fuckin’ witcha. They retired Gaedel’s number. I wonder whether they also retired his locker, which was actually a shoe box turned on its end.
Incredible start to a MLB career for Baez to say the least. But in a way, kind of sad. He’s unlikely to ever have another game close to this good. Kid kind of shot his wad in his very first game, and it will all be downhill from here.
Day 2 of his MLB career is now in the books: 0-for-5 w/ 3 Ks, 5 men stranded on base, and eventually subbed out. May be back in the minors by the end of the week.
Let’s see, if he averages 3 HR per game x 40 games remaining…
The best part was really the 30 FAMILY MEMBERS in attendance. It’s a day their descendants will still be talking about a hundred years from now.