Horner Gives Delahanty Some Company in Home Run Purgatory

No, Bob Horner wasn’t the first player to hit four home runs in a game for a losing team.

Ed Delahanty, a turn-of-the-century Hall of Famer, did it in 1896. Playing for the Philadelphia Phillies against the Chicago Nationals at Westside Park in Chicago, Delahanty hit four homers as the Phillies lost, 9-8. The crowd was 1,100.

All four homers came off Chicago pitcher Bill (Adonis) Terry who went all the way. Philadelphia pitcher Ned Garvin also went all the way, and it turned out to be his only decision in an 0-1 season.

Delahanty, a lifetime .345 hitter, wound up with 13 homers that season, second in the National League. The leader with 14 was Bill Joyce, who played for both Washington and New York. Delahanty led in doubles with 44 and runs batted in with 126.

Note: As evidence that times have changed, Delahanty was nicknamed Big Ed. He was 6-1 and 170.

45 Years Ago Today: On July 8, 1941, Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox hit a home run with two on and two out in the ninth inning to give the American League a dramatic 7-5 victory in the All-Star game at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium. Claude Passeau was the victim. Up to that point Arky Vaughan of the Pittsburgh Pirates was the NL hero with two home runs, the first player to do so in All-Star play. Joe and Dom DiMaggio both played for the AL, marking the first time that brothers appeared in the same All-Star game.

Trivia Time: What Ram running back holds the team record for most carries from scrimmage in a game? (Answer below.)

Wait a Minute: Said Memphis Chick owner George Lapides after Bo Jackson’s first seven games: “I think he’s doing quite well.”

Jackson was hitting .074. He had only 2 hits in 27 at-bats and had struck out 11 times.

Wrote Gary Pomerantz of the Washington Post recently: “A scout from one major league club filed this report on Jackson in the spring, while Jackson was striking out 30 times in 69 at-bats with Auburn. It read, in part: “(Jackson) is striking out a lot at present and always has when I’ve seen him . . . against just mediocre pitching (he) has problems with the breaking pitches and hard stuff inside.

” . . . Believe he is the type player when, if he hits, he goes all out; if not, he had a tendency to let up . . . believe rookie league pitching would eat him up; believe he is using baseball leverage to drive up price on football. . . .”

From Ken Denlinger of the Washington Post: “One other enduring memory of the 100th Wimbledon. A few days ago, the heat in what the stylish British writer Rex Bellamy calls ‘the mother church of tennis’ was more than even the Duke of Kent could bear.

“He stood and took off his coat.

“Startled, and pleased, the other gentlemen in the royal box followed his lead. Those in the second row got up and removed their jackets. Then the third row popped up. And the fourth.

“That was the closest the mother church will come to The Wave.”

Trivia Answer: Charles White. Last year against Philadelphia, he carried 36 times for 144 yards, a 4.0 average, as the Rams beat the Eagles, 17-6.

Quotebook

Bill (Spaceman) Lee, former USC and big league pitcher, on the College World Series: “That was real baseball. We weren’t playing for the money. We got Mickey Mouse watches that ran backward.”