The question arises as surely as the nature of the future
To inquisitive baseball minds: Acknowledging that our
Beloved sport, with the life span of a Greenland shark,
And that Major League baseball by nature is a sport
Of innumerable records, and that the nature of records
Set by the best (or worst) Athletes is that they are made
To be broken as surely as a newly hired manager will be
Fired one day – – – Which MLB record is the rarest
(and least likely to ever be broken)?
The fans’ knee-jerk reaction would be a single player
Hitting four home runs in the same game — but
Remember that knees can be easily injured: That feat
Has been accomplished 19 times, as of this writing,
By the greats (Mike Schmidt, Gil Hodges, Lou Gehrig)
The almost greats (J. D. Martinez, Shawn Green,
Rocky Colavito) and the not so greats (Eugenio Suarez,
Scooter Gennett, and Mike Cameron).
Examining this question under a microscope yields more
Compelling possibilities, starting with the bottom line,
That the record must be one that has happened only once
Since 1876, when Major League baseball officially began.
That eliminates unassisted triple play (15 times, so far)
And pitching a perfect game (24, so far). One scribe
Advocates that the answer occurred on April 23, 1999,
When Fernando Tatis (the senior) hit two grand slams
In the same inning! Off the same hurler (the Dodgers’
Chan Ho Park)! That would be quite difficult to replicate,
Never mind surpass, requiring the same batter to hit three
“Grand salamis” in the same inning. (Consider how many
Runs would score in such an inning.) However, allow me
To offer a competitor: the Reds’ Johnny Vander Meer threw
Two consecutive no-hitters on June 11 and 15, 1938!
Can you conceive of someone throwing three
Consecutive no-hitters to break that record?
Di Maggio’s hitting in 56 consecutive games may one day
Be broken. They used to say the Iron Horse playing in
2,130 consecutive games (stopped only by his contracting
ALS) would stand forever, until Cal Ripken played in 2,632
Straight. Even Rickey Henderson’s 1,406 career stolen bases
Is out there, waiting with the tension of taking that first step
that sends another runner sliding into the books.
How about the marriage of hitting power and speed? On
June 30, 2025 Wilyer Abreu of the Red Sox hit an inside-the-
Park home run and a grand slam homer in the same game!
That’s certainly rare . . . but not unique. A little research shows
That between 1890 and 1958, five other Major Leaguers did
The same thing (Fields, Scott, Gehringer, Tabor and Maris).
Let me finish with a controversial conclusion: In my opinion,
Vander Meer’s feat was greater than Tatis’ because the former
Involved pitching 279 pitches (an astronomic number now that
The Majors have descended into the era of the pitch count and
The babying of starting pitchers) whereas the latter took just
Two swings in his record-setting power surge. Agree?
Disagree? Arguing among baseball fans is almost as much
Sport as the games themselves. The statistics and the heartbeats
Make up the competition. The main difference is that baseball
Games come to definitive conclusions whereas good baseball
Arguments can set their own records for both the number of
Players involved and the number of seasons — and even
Generations — these exercises of persuasion will go on.