Dodgers tie consecutive homerun record

Bill Jempty | Tuesday, September 19, 2006

From AP-

When things looked bleak for the Los Angeles Dodgers, they found their power stroke. The Dodgers hit four consecutive homers in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the game, and Nomar Garciaparra’s two-run drive in the 10th lifted Los Angeles to an 11-10 victory over the San Diego Padres on Monday night.

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After Los Angeles tied it in the ninth with four straight homers — just the fourth time that’s happened in major league history — the Padres went ahead on Brian Giles’ double and Josh Bard’s two-out single off Aaron Sele (8-6).

But Rudy Seanez (1-2) walked Kenny Lofton to begin the bottom half, and Garciaparra followed by hitting his 18th homer deep into the left-field pavilion.

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At Los Angeles, Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew opened the ninth with homers off San Diego’s Jon Adkins. Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson then connected on the first two pitches thrown by Trevor Hoffman, who entered with 475 career saves — three shy of Lee Smith’s major league record.

The last time a team hit four consecutive homers was on May 2, 1964, when the Minnesota Twins accomplished the feat against Kansas City in the 11th inning.

I don’t have anything to add about last night’s game except Dodger stadium is an unlikely place for such a happening. That stadium is one of the toughest hitter’s parks in baseball.

Baseball author Bill James wrote many years ago about the 1964 game. Before that season began, Charles Finley wanted to change the dimensions of Kansas City Municipal Stadium to the exact same dimensions as Yankee Stadium. All in order to increase homerun production. MLB wouldn’t allow the ballpark changes.

So Finley had a line drawn across the outfield in Left and Right where the fence would have been. Whenever a ball was hit over the line, the PA announcer would intone “That would have been a homerun in Yankee Stadium”. On the day of the four consecutive homers, the next batter hit a long fly ball out. The announcer said. “”That would have been a homerun in Yankee Stadium”. The next day that announcement was discontinued.

The 64 A’s did increase their homerun production, but mostly for their opponents. Opposition batters hit a then ML record amount of homers against the A’s.(220 or thereabouts) The record would stand till 1987.

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Tags | MLB Bill Jempty, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres

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