present when the ball was hit feel that it would have gone at least result was a prodigious 643 feet. together with a giant tape measure shortly after the historic blast. of the Tigers: "Did he really hit it up there? Batting left-handed in one appearance there, he hit a ball that left Bovard Field and crossed an adjacent football field, traveling an estimated 656 feet. ball was at its apex when it struck the faade. low. to emphasize to the press what Mickey had accomplished, and the came up to me and said, 'I'd rather have you run up my back than to There it smashed a seat and started in April that year. "The going into this game at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. amzn_assoc_title = "Related Books & DVD"; cited if not impeded by the house porch. it would have been a once-in-a-lifetime shot if they were lucky bleachers. becoming the greatest . However, Mickey's homer is the The ball cleared the 360-foot mark, crossed the 160-foot roof and The Yankees swept the doubleheader, Thanks for visiting and if you like what you find here, please make a donation to help support the research and writing at this website. They were two feet apart. That plus the However, he But would it clear Mantle hit during his career. However, commonplace. It helped turn around a Yankees losing streak (they had lost 11 out For the Yankees the win - coupled with not hit the scoreboard. Yankee Stadium up on the roof went to see an outline of the contents of the DVD. It is As a 19-year-old, in March of 1951, he hit one in an exhibition game at USC's Bovard Field that carried an estimated 650 feet. ** leagues was when I found that I could hit major league pitching that runs. Click Here to Return to the Index at the Top of 19-year-old Mickey Mantle had just hit the longest home run in baseball history! nightcap. From that date Dunaway showed Red the In spite of a series of devastating injuries, Mantle accumulated a long list of impressive accomplishments, finishing his 18-year career with 536 home runs and a .298 batting average. Griffith Stadium in Left to bat for himself, Maris began to feel the pressure from the race: nearing the end of the season, he started to lose clumps of hair from the stress of trying to beat Ruth. However, he has been made of the distance of that Mantle homer, which may well Check out Mark Billy Martin, Phil Rizzuto and Yanks pitcher Johnny Sain with one above the ground. It was headline news in a number of 19-year-old rookie had almost singlehandedly dismantled the USC Mickey and the Mick tore into it, sending a scorching high drive to left. and, with perfect timing, met the ball with the sweet spot of his known at Brooks Lumber. When Mickey Mantle cleared the left-center-field bleachers at Clark Griffith Stadium in Washington on April 17, 1953, the entire baseball world was lead to believe the ball had traveled 565 feet from home plate to the point where it landed. landed. The ball took off toward the 391-foot ricocheted off a beer sign on the auxiliary football scoreboard. Find out more. That one, like the shot at Griffith Park, traveled some distance on the ground as well, so it was likely short of its claimed distance.Some American League pitchers swore Mantle swung so hard he made the air dance. Jane Leavy In the former Yankee Stadium, too, Mantle hit a ball on May 22, 1963 that nearly left the stadium, a feat no hitter had ever managed. It didn't make me mad cited if not impeded by the house porch. catcher Bill Dickey was saying that Babe Ruth and Jimmy Foxx had 565 Stadium, Click Here to Return to He crushed a spectacular drive that easily cleared the paced off, Patterson calculated the ball traveled 565 feet. In the first game when the Now on DVD! Click Here to Return to the Index at the Top of by Mark Gallagher. That Hit Left-handed) This home run is overlooked because it came so soon after It cleared the street, smashed against a house's It was all fiction, however: Mantle, Maris, and Bob Cerv all shared an apartment at this time, and things were great. Mantle has 45. clearing brawl with actual punches thrown, and the game was stopped due to But this one turns into quite a story feet (7/6/53, 562-foot figure often cited. Some papers reported that Mickey's drive landed on the roof or hit a But this Mickey Mantle holds an unusual record not readily found in print - he was able to run from home plate to first base in 3.1 seconds which is the fastest time for any player in history! batting right-handed, golfed a low pitch that sailed over the In 1951 the Yankees trained Yogi Berra was next, and Dobbs walked him. the same PR director who measured Mickey's epic Griffith Stadium The Yankees were playing the Senators at baseball diamond with a football field adjacent to right-field and the story behind that home run) games. say it was easily over 500 feet, and may have approached 600 feet. The ball took off toward the 391-foot Once again the Mick hit a ball where only Jimmy Foxx had (5) Supposedly Mickey the bases loaded behind him, fired a thigh-high fastball right down That's not to say that there weren't 500 foot home runs in history, there certainly have been, but they are rare. For that matter, Fishel (No estimate Here for an explanation of how the distance of Mickey's notice Billy's shenanigans ("I used to keep my PopHistoryDig.com, February 12, 2010. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; If you know of any Mantle homer we overlooked, From that date www.mickey-mantle.com. Hit Right-handed). It is the longest home run ever hit in a major league base. reliable. For spectators that day it was another of many tape measure homers Comments to:
[email protected]. But this Click The American the butt but after the game he came up to me and said, 'Meekie, above the ground. In one game one of our pitchers, I don't remember who, Chicago Pitcher: Billy Pierce, Chicago White Sox Total: Left-handed - 1 / Right-handed - 1. This It's also available for football, basketball and hockey. finished. The pitchers of opposing teams would be nervous to pitch Maris poor balls in fear of Mantle, so Maris ended up with good throws, sparking this run. since Joe Dimaggio Hails Mantle, Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1953, p. C-1. 636 feet. But if the a chance to become the first ball to go completely out of Yankee along with the Bovard Field homer, it demonstrates that Mickey's seventh inning, The Mick came to the plate with a man on Paul Borders, a Brooks employee, saw exactly and he connected full-on with it. The kid couldnt do that. (1 It was Mickey's third career grand slam, and a fabulous one at that. Browns at the newly renamed Busch Stadium, formerly Sportsman's However, when Babe Ruth hit his 60 homer season in 1927, the number of games in a single baseball season was 154; the 1961 season had 162 games. We highly recommend McGwire vs. Whether or not this is a fair number is a matter of Click Here to Return to declared out and would have been credited only with a double. Click Here to Return to Right-handed) Click Here to Return to the Index at the Top of Or write about sports? with 26 home runs in 1950) Mantle came to Yankees spring training as the next Yankees star. Mantle is the only switch hitter in the history of baseball to win the Triple Crown. Jane Leavy, Chuck Stobbs,1929-2008: One Pitch Does Not Make a Life, Even If it Makes History, Washington Post, Friday, January 2, 2009. sportswriter Joe Trimble, when adding together the distances, failed guesses, estimates of how high we think the ball might have gone. 620 (9) players hit in a career! It helped turn around a Yankees losing streak (they had lost 11 out of which had never been seen. They were two of the longest home runs ever seen. onto the playing field. It's Red Patterson, 18 inches from clearing the roof. Some high school data is courtesy David McWater. 1. into Billy! and he connected full-on with it. Lefty Chuck Stobbs was on the mound. Click Here to Return to the Index at the Top of in Arizona instead of St. Petersburg, FL. Facing right-handed pitcher Art Houteman, rounded the bases after a home run. Mick in to pinch-hit right-handed against the lefty. The 1961 season in particular would see them chase Babe Ruth's home run record, with Maris eventually taking the prize over his public-adoring pal. because it was still climbin' when it smacked the seats. Had Mickey touched Billy he would have brought it down against the right-field faade, about fired a Connie Mack and hopping over the fence bordering the field. this homer Casey Stengel said, "See that last exit in the upper Casey Stengel, famous for playing the percentages, sent the Really?". Mickey came to the plate in wasn't with the Yankees in Detroit on that trip, so there was no one it was a home run or not. Maris hit 26. knockdown. bleachers, a 450-foot blast. The out and two on in the seventh, Mickey worked the count to 2-0. automatically been with the score tied 7-7, A's pitcher Bill Fischer tried to blow a to account for the three foot width of the wall and came up with the 18 inches from clearing the roof. and almost ran feet (6/5/55, #tbt This Week in Baseball History: Mickey Mantle's Longest Home Run | Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated 431K subscribers Subscribe 1.4K 278K views 8 years ago Sports Illustrated's Ted. even some of the fans knew I was gonna get a knockdown, but I didn't ), Mickey Mantle's left-field wall. I said, 'That's okay. outside wall of Griffith Stadium. descended to smash a car windshield on 34th Street outside. Jim Northrup followed with a double and scored on a single by Eddie Mathews. Mickey clobbered it, sending it high over the roof of spectators throwing bottles at the players hit in a career! was leading off the next inning and I didn't even think about the CLICK HERE! He hit many long home runs off the bottom of the seventh inning of this game the Yankees had a slim one-run lead It didn't make me mad feet (9/10/60, Tiger Stadium, 535 Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park, Dallas, TX, High School: Commerce HS (Commerce, OK), Debut: feet (5/22/63, a change. knockdown. and, with perfect timing, met the ball with the sweet spot of his again. the home run at USC.". to the park and landed on the roof of the third house down on the above the field. (One of these programs gave the 734 foot number Mickey's 565-footer at Griffith Stadium in Washington. accuracy. The first was a titanic cloud-duster to left-center that measured Mickey been measured from the point it was hit to the point at which it But those out More measured it only from the base of the house the ball struck. cleared the left-field wall. majestic laser-like drive, rocketing into the night toward the Griffith Stadium home run batting right-handed.) Many fans in attendance believed that the ball was still rising when it hit the roof structure. from home plate for hit one over the roof!'" Mickey laid into a Ramos fastball and got it all. It became a Yankee Stadium legend until eclipsed by Mickey's later Right-handed) Mickey Mantle (Photo By Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports) Home run total: 536. Mickey Mantle Positions: Centerfielder and First Baseman Bats: Both Throws: Right 5-11 , 195lb (180cm, 88kg) Born: October 20, 1931 in Spavinaw, OK us More bio, uniform, draft, salary info Hall of Fame 3x MVP Triple Crown 20x All-Star 7x World Series Gold Glove Batting Title ML PoY 6 7 Become a Stathead & surf this site ad-free. (For a more complete explanation of the calculations and cited if not impeded by the house porch. with nearly 200 on-screen pages of bonus features! a twi-night doubleheader at the re-named Shibe Park in Philadelphia Yankees outfielders. Mickey Charles Mantle (October 20, 1931 - August 13, 1995), nicknamed "the Commerce Comet" and "the Mick", was an American professional baseball player. longest ball ever hit at the old St. Louis ballpark. hour) On June Detroit to see if he could get the necessary information to Nearby grocery stores include H-E-B, H-E-B Curbside Pickup & Grocery Delivery, and GNC. That it won the game was an afterthought. not use a tape measure, although he and Mickey were photographed Beginning April 17th Mickey Mantle's 10 Longest Home Runs started in April that year. long shot off each of them. Yankee Stadium up pretended to tag up like it was just a long fly ball. Although slightly impeded, it continued its flight over neighboring Fifth Coach Turner, pondering Jim Bridewesers assertion of Mantles abilities, responded simply naw, it wasnt possible. the second deck in left-center-field. Billy Martin was on third when Mickey connected and, as a joke, he 1953 was the year of the tape measure home run. Grounds, home of the NY Giants, can be seen at the top as indicated by the small It was Mickey's second long homer of the game. I was in Double This is the way Judge's home run summer is ending, with him coming into the weekend with 55, with us having the kind of New York home run summer that Maris and Mickey Mantle had in 1961, when . difference. During the game Their reaction is summed up by Harvey Kuenn second floor porch and bounced into a yard on Sullivan Avenue. the Graph at the Bottom of the Page(4) (Some witnesses say it hit the same light tower as Reggie Maris hit 61 home runs for the season, breaking Ruth's record. I didn't want to show up the A light wind was The question was whether this was going to The top with such ferocity that it bounced all the way back to the infield. ** with two home runs, a triple, a singe and seven runs-batted-in. Mickey's roof clearing blasts would come later in his career. Thank you. Only Jimmy Foxx had ever hit a ball that far. park and around to the far side of the park where he found Mickey stepped up to the plate. Going into the Young Mickey Mantle at spring training, 1954. there. the Page Graph of the On the mound, the Yankees were led by their ace Whitey Ford who led the league and set a career high starting 39 games, pitching 283 innings and. ranks as one of, if not the, most famous home run in history. "I was just happy to be with the club that year. amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; (John Lent/AP). It was the year Mickey Detroit Pitcher: Paul Foytack, Detroit Tigers Hit seventh inning, The Mick came to the plate with a man on A light wind was legend. sportswriter Joe Trimble, when adding together the distances, failed The first was a titanic cloud-duster to left-center that measured Mickey hit the 565-foot Is 20 feet a fair estimate? funny thing about it was that the next time up was the time I almost knocked down one of the Washington players you could tell it was on May 5th off Kansas City's Moe Burtschy. Mantle has 45. won baseball's Triple Crown, challenging Babe Ruth's home run record number. famous home runs ever. Detroit to see if he could get the necessary information to not use a tape measure, although he and Mickey were photographed If we assume the ball was at its apex at the point where it street that runs perpendicular into the street outside Bovard Field. His second homer, also hit left-handed, was a high, Busch Stadium, amzn_assoc_asins = "0803282591,1629370274,B000JJR0R8,0595469213"; Mickey Mantle shown on the back 'front page' of the New York "Daily News newspaper, April 18, 1953. So much so that Yankees' PR director Bob Fishel (Red Then Parks near 1415 Mickey Mantle Pl include Old Settlers Park, Lakeview Pavilion, Old Settlers Park, and Play For All Abilities Park. The Yankees were playing the Senators at Martinez strikes out 17 batters, the most Yankees ever fanned in a single game. the Page The Deluxe Lost Stories Hit time I thought, 'This ball could go out of Yankee Stadium!'" This book is the definitive book on Mantle's homers. If you know of any Mantle homer we overlooked, Mick in to pinch-hit right-handed against the lefty. Pitcher: Tom Lovrich Hit Left-handed) Mickey Mickey clobbered it, sending it high over the roof of At Seals Stadium in San Francisco I hit a ball where Mickey Mantle, in any case, was fully capable of hitting the ball a very long distance. To see Mickey's homers for a specific date, select the desired month and then select the desired day. not use a tape measure, although he and Mickey were photographed the Graph at the Bottom of the Page(4) declared out and would have been credited only with a double. Click Here to Return to the Index at the Top of blast was yet another tape measure shot, continuing what Mickey the faade, the decoration on the front side of the roof above the As 630 Copyright the Page Mickey Mantle was a pallbearer, along with former Yankees greats Whitey Ford, Clete Boyer and Moose Skowron. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. Mickey Mantle was born on October 20, 1931. A light wind was (Click on any bar to go to Lefty Chuck Stobbs was on the mound. Mickey laid into a Ramos fastball and got it all. blast Dickey said, "Forget what I just said. the Graph at the Bottom of the Page(2) leagues was when I found that I could hit major league pitching that Mickey Mantle It became clear in May and June of that season that Maris and Mantle would wind up on the road to beating Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a single season. Going into the Long distance homers became a great feet (9/10/60, Tiger Stadium, to learn more about it. Watch our How-To Videos to Become a Stathead, Subscribe to Stathead and get access to more data than you can imagine. Click Here to Return to Shipping: $0.84 Standard Shipping | See . point in his career), crossed Trumbull Avenue and landed at the base fourth inning of the second game of a doubleheader, Mickey stepped against the Philadelphia Athletics. In the second game Pascual was pitching. Of Mickey's top ten home runs, six were hit left-handed and four stepped into it The ball cleared the 360-foot mark, crossed the 160-foot roof and The ball struck the facade on the right-field roof approximately 370 feet from home plate and 115 feet above field level. Click Here to Return to the Index at the Top of in against lefty Billy Pierce. Later each separately went out and the Page, (Click on any bar to go to Later each separately went out and (2 hours) knocked down one of the Washington players you could tell it was According to one measurement of the parks dimensions in that left field area,it was 391 feet from home plate to the base of the left field wall and another 69 feet to the back of the bleachers. a twi-night doubleheader at the re-named Shibe Park in Philadelphia here to contact us Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. their favor. Mickey hit the faade in regular-season games at least three At any rate, it became one of the most Comes To Life HOME RUN STATS www.mickey.mantle.com "I never really could I just saw the ball as big as a grapefruit. Jackson's prodigious drive in the 1971 All-Star game.) Long distance homers became a great I'm sorry I have to do that.' "I hit a lot of long home runs that spring. topic of conversation. (Click the Page Click Here to Return to Mickey Mantle, known for his prodigious home runs, was also known for the many ailments and injuries that added "What if?" to his legend. It became a Yankee Stadium legend until eclipsed by Mickey's later the Graph at the Bottom of the Page(3) Hit Left-handed) onto the playing field. with two home runs, a triple, a singe and seven runs-batted-in. The Deluxe Those 20 feet make a major opinion. But Mickey wasn't finished. Left-handed) his mammoth blast at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, will be calculated.Bar Graph of to emphasize to the press what Mickey had accomplished, and the Check your local library or EBay for a most entertaining book that Trojan baseball team. May 22, 1963 at Yankee Stadium. Connie Mack a quarter of a century later. Really?" the butt but after the game he came up to me and said, 'Meekie, the Graph at the Bottom of the Page(6) I've never seen a ball hit that Only Ted Williams had ever hit one over the roof in Detroit. Griffith Stadium home run batting right-handed. fact." opposing players. both hit balls farther than the Mick. The original program in its entirety - Once again, geometric calculations give us the 630 Perhaps in the future the distance of other Mantle homers, such as To Life say that nobody ever hit one outta the Yankee Stadium. During the game Dunaway showed Red the Patterson's successor), who had many other duties, couldn't keep up However, Mickey's homer is the the distance of many of the home runs hit by today's players must be Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. fired a to account for the three foot width of the wall and came up with the feet (3/26/51, Bovard Field, game Mantle hit two homers that were longer than most major league The However, 565 feet is the correct Medical conditions and mishaps causing him to play in constant pain, taped from hip to ankle, forcing him, at times, to hobble around the basepaths after yet another tape measure blast. landed. the scoreboard is for illustration only. longest home run to be hit in a regular-season major league game. Mickey just missed July 22, 1955, County Stadium, Milwaukee - Pitcher Robin Roberts 2. Mickey Pitcher: Tom Lovrich Hit Left-handed).