You love baseball. Tim Kurkjian loves baseball. So while we await its return, every day we'll provide you with a story or two tied to this date in baseball history.
ON THIS DATE IN 1952, Hoyt Wilhelm hits a home run in his first major league at-bat.
Wilhelm, a notoriously bad hitter, would have another 431 at-bats and never hit another homer. That would be enough to separate Hoyt Wilhelm, but there is more.
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He is the only player in major league history with the first name Hoyt. He had a 2.52 ERA in 2,254 innings: Clayton Kershaw is the only pitcher in the live ball era (from 1920 on) to have an ERA that low in that many innings. Wilhelm is a Hall of Famer; he is one of the five best relief pitchers of all time.
He had the best knuckleball ever. Paul Richards, who was a part of the game as a player, manager and executive for 55 years, told me that Wilhelm's knuckleball "was the single best pitch in baseball history.'' It was impossible to hit, to catch and, for an umpire, to call. Which is why Bob Uecker always said that the best way to catch a knuckleball "is to wait until it stops rolling, then pick it up.''
So, in 1990, I was writing a story on knuckleball pitchers, and I called Hoyt Wilhelm. He said to call him at his hotel -- pre-cellphones, of course -- at 8 p.m. So I called at 8. There was no answer. I tried every five minutes just in case he was just getting in. Finally, he answered the phone at 10 p.m. He was fast asleep. He screamed at me -- I deserved it -- for waking him up. He did the interview, he was gracious, he was great. But when I called the front desk to ask how this could have happened, I was told, "Very sorry, sir, we were ringing the wrong room. It seems we have two Hoyt Wilhelms in the hotel tonight.''
Two Hoyt Wilhelms in the hotel?! There's only one Hoyt Wilhelm!
Whatever. In the great movie "61*," director Billy Crystal chose Tom Candiotti, a knuckleball pitcher who had just been released by the Angels, to play Wilhelm.
"I had a blast. I had my own trailer. I got royalty checks. One was for 61 cents,'' Candiotti said. "So I threw Barry Pepper (the actor playing Roger Maris) about 15, 17 knuckleballs, and he never came close to hitting any of them. The catcher playing Gus Triandos couldn't catch the ball. I hit him in the mask several times. Poor Gus, I felt sorry for him. All we needed was a little dribbler up the first-base line, but Barry couldn't hit anything, So Billy comes out to the mound, he's laughing and said, 'Tom, we have a problem here -- it's called tape.'
"So, I slowed down the knuckler, then one of them hits Barry right in the chest. The entire movie cast comes running to home plate like I had killed the star of the show. Barry is lying on the ground and he asked me, 'How hard was that one?' I said, 'That was 55 mph. You have to get up after that one.' So he's all dirty now, he has to get a new uniform and new makeup, and that takes about three hours. He comes back and still can't hit it. So Billy just rolled one up the first-base line.''
Other baseball notes from April 23
In 1999, Fernando Tatis hit two grand slams in one inning, the only player ever to do that. They both came off Chan Ho Park. Glenn Davis hit 190 homers in the major leagues, and never hit a grand slam (that is the record among non-active players). Jim Palmer pitched 3,948 innings and never allowed a grand slam. But in one inning, Tatis hit two, Park gave up two.
In 1954, Hank Aaron hit the first of his 755 home runs. I once asked him where his incredibly strong hands and wrists came from. "Well,'' he said, "my dad was a boxer. And he used to deliver blocks of ice to people's houses. He would carry them with these ice tongs. I used to go with him and help him. Those blocks of ice were heavy.''
In 1977, center fielder Andruw Jones was born. No one went back on a ball better than Andruw Jones.
In 2012, Hall of Fame catcher Pudge Rodriguez retired. The morning of his major league debut in 1991, he got married. On the night of his official retirement, the Rangers had Pudge throw out the first ball, but instead of throwing from the mound to the plate, he threw from behind to the plate to second base to former teammate Michael Young.
In 1967, pitcher Rheal Cormier was born. My biggest regret is that I took French, not Spanish, in high school and college. Thirty-three percent of major league players speak Spanish. And now that Cormier has retired, I have no one to talk to.
In 2013, the Upton brothers, Justin and B.J., homered in the same inning for the Braves. That same year, I was the dugout reporter for a Braves game. Justin walked over to say hello during the game. After the game, I talked to B.J. He said, "My brother and I were wondering during the game, 'What size shoe do you wear?''' That's what they were wondering during a game? "I wear a 7½,'' I said. "Wow,'' B.J. said, "that's really small.''