With two homers last night, Brandon Nimmo is an obvious choice for today’s home run chain, so let’s do it…
Brandon Nimmo hit his first home run off Jason Hammel, 7/1/16
Jason Hammel gave up his first home run to Melvin Mora, 4/11/06
Melvin Mora hit his first home run off Curt Leskanic, 4/20/00
Curt Leskanic gave up his first home run to Mike Benjamin, 6/27/93
Mike Benjamin hit his first home run off Jason Grimsley, 8/26/90
Jason Grimsley gave up his first home run to Howard Johnson, 9/13/89
Howard Johnson hit his first home run off Pete Redfern, 4/28/82
Pete Redfern gave up his first home run to Bobby Bonds, 5/15/76
Bobby Bonds hit his first home run off John Purdin, 6/25/68
John Purdin gave up his first home run to Jim Wynn, 10/4/64
Jim Wynn hit his first home run off Don Rowe, 7/14/63
Don Rowe gave up his first home run to Henry Aaron, 4/11/63
Henry Aaron hit his first home run off Vic Raschi, 4/23/54
Vic Raschi gave up his first home run to Wally Judnich, 7/24/47
Wally Judnich hit his first home run off Bobo Newsom, 4/16/40
Bobo Newsom gave up his first home run to Zeke Bonura, 4/22/34
Zeke Bonura hit his first home run off Vic Sorrell, 4/18/34
Vic Sorrell gave up his first home run to Joe Sewell, 5/30/28
Joe Sewell hit his first home run off Bill Burwell, 4/14/21
Bill Burwell gave up his first home run to Joe Judge, 5/18/20
Joe Judge hit his first home run off Bullet Joe Bush, 6/30/17
Bullet Joe Bush gave up his first home run to Ping Bodie, 8/11/13
Ping Bodie hit his first home run off Eddie Cicotte, 6/3/11
Eddie Cicotte gave up his first home run to Topsy Hartsel, 6/19/09
Topsy Hartsel hit his first home run off Bill Carrick, 6/4/99
Bill Carrick gave up his first home run to Pete Cassidy, 4/28/99
That was the first home run of Pete Cassidy’s career, an inside-the-parker, according to his home run log, followed by another the next day against Brickyard Kennedy of the Brooklyn Superbas, who had traded him to the Washington Senators four days earlier. The deal sent Cassidy, Mike Heydon, Dan McFarlan, and cash to the Washington Senators (National League edition) for James Casey and Duke Farrell.
Surprise, the team that was trading halfway decent players (Farrell went on to jump to the American League and played for Boston in the 1903 World Series) in exchange for scrubs and $2,500 is the one that does not exist anymore, and in fact did not exist after going 54-98 in 1899.
Good news for Washington, though: the 1899 Senators did not finish last. In fact, they finished 35 games ahead of last, because that was the year the Cleveland Spiders went 20-134, finishing 84 games behind National League champion Brooklyn, which managed to shrug off that Cassidy homer to win 101 games. Brickyard Kennedy went 22-9 with a 2.79 ERA, one of three 20-game winners for the Superbas along with Jack Dunn and Jay Hughes, while Brooklyn also got 19 victories from James McJames and one relief appearance from Welcome Gaston.
Now you can sing “Welcome Gaston” to the tune of Helter Skelter.
We Can Pod It Out 143: Helter Skelter