Fun thing about the home run chains is that they cut both ways. Take any pitcher who pitched long enough, and they gave up home runs. Like, say, an unrepentant domestic abuser and cheater who happened to get 27 straight outs last night against the 21st century Cleveland Spiders, the team you may remember from yesterday’s post about the 1899 Washington Senators finishing 35 games ahead of them, in next-to-last, also-went-out-of-business-after-the-season place. Congratulations or something. Baseball immortality.
Domingo Germán gave up his first home run to Yuli Gurriel, 7/2/17
Yuli Gurriel hit his first home run off Andrew Miller, 9/7/16
Andrew Miller gave up his first home run to David Wright, 6/10/17
David Wright hit his first home run off John Patterson, 7/26/04
John Patterson gave up his first home run to Tom Lampkin, 7/20/02
Tom Lampkin hit his first home run off Mike Scott, 7/28/90
Mike Scott gave up his first home run to Bill Fahey, 5/13/79
Bill Fahey hit his first home run off Roger Nelson, 9/4/72
Roger Nelson gave up his first home run to Tony Horton, 9/22/67
Tony Horton hit his first home run off Fred Talbot, 8/8/64
Fred Talbot gave up his first home run to Luis Aparicio, 6/11/64
Luis Aparicio hit his first home run off Tommy Lasorda, 5/28/56
Tommy Lasorda gave up his first home run to Bill Sarni, 8/5/54
Bill Sarni hit his first home run off Bob Miller, 6/6/54
Bob Miller gave up his first home run to Hank Thompson, 5/14/50
Hank Thompson hit his first home run off Tiny Bonham, 7/16/49
Tiny Bonham gave up his first home run to Jimmie Foxx, 8/5/40
Foxx connects us to the Francisco Álvarez home run chain, running all the way back to one of baseball’s all-time scoundrels, in a different way, Charlie Comiskey. Probably also not great with misogyny or racism, being a 19th century baseball player and 20th century baseball owner.
It could be worse. Gurriel hit his second home run one day later in Cleveland off some dude who’s currently in Japan. Pity, because Germán, Gurriel, and that guy all are worthy riders of the baseball submersible to be launched later.
Miller “saved” it from being a total rogues’ gallery, so how cool is it that David Wright’s home run chain goes to Mike Scott… who gave up his second and third home runs (while pitching for the Mets) to Keith Hernandez (in his MVP season with the Cardinals)?
Also, it should be noted, Hank Thompson hit home runs for the Kansas City Monarchs before he smashed 129 in eight seasons with the New York Giants. These home run chains rely on the Baseball-Reference home run logs, which are powered by a SABR database. Maybe the day will come when more information is added to that database — maybe there’s an account of the home run that Thompson hit for the 1943 Monarchs as a 17-year-old. He was the third Black player in MLB, debuting for the St. Louis Browns just 12 days after Larry Doby integrated the American League. Thompson was also the first Black player for the Giants, debuting for New York on the same day as Monte Irvin, July 8, 1949 — a week later, he got on the board with the first of those 129 National League dingers.
We Can Pod It Out 144: Long, Long, Long