An inside-the-park grand slam?
Good morning, all! I hope you had a terrific weekend!
An inside-the-park home run is a rarity. An inside-the-park grand slam? You might have a better chance at winning the “Pick 3.” But on Friday, not only did I witness an inside-the-park grand slam, I had the honor of making the call on the America East Conference television presentation of the University of Maine at University of Hartford game.
With the score tied 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh inning and Maine ace Nick Sinacola on the mound - several scouts were in attendance to watch the 6’1” junior who carried an 8-1 record and 1.41 ERA into the game - Donnie Cohoon, a left hand batter, belted a ball to right-center and it was off to the races. In fact, the Hartford Hawks posted the grand slam on their Twitter feed and here it is:
Cohoon’s feat got me to thinking, didn’t I read where Mel Stottlemyre once hit an inside-the-park grand slam? The Yankees pitcher, who later went on to become a successful pitching coach with the Mets, Astros and Yankees, did indeed. It was on July 20, 1965 against the Boston Red Sox, when Stottlemyre turned the trick at Yankee Stadium. On the day that President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned the U.S.A. by announcing that Arthur Goldberg was resigning as U.S. Supreme Court justice to become the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Stottlemyre was stunning the baseball world with this rare feat. Stottlemyre, who the season before went 5-for-5 at the plate in a game against the Washington Senators, belted his homer off of Red Sox ace Bill Monbouquette, who three seasons later would have a stint with the Yanks’ and be Stottlemyre’s teammate. With the Carl Yastrzemski in left and Jim Gosger in center playing shallow, “Stott” drilled it into the gap and started running.
“I guess they thought I was going to bunt to squeeze in a run,” Stottlemyre joked after the game.
Marv to call it a career
When I was growing up, there was no cable television in my neck of the woods. My brothers and I would listen to games on the radio and that included the New York Knicks. This was when the Knicks were consistently good - is this the season they might become consistently good again a half century later? - and we would huddle around the radio to listen to Marv Albert call Knicks games. That also meant hearing his signature “Yes” (now copied by many) when the Knicks scored a basket. Well several reports circulated this weekend that Albert, 80, will retire from his gig calling NBA games on TNT after this season’s playoffs.
The versatile Albert, in his heyday, also called NY Giants football, succeeding his mentor Marty Glickman, NY Rangers hockey, hosted Yankees pregame and post game shows on WHN 1050, was the voice of boxing on NBC-TV and also called NFL games on television. Other than that, he did not do much.
We wish Marv well in retirement, but something tells me we have not heard the last of him, after his TNT days are over.
I wish you a terrific week, and as always, thank you for subscribing to the newsletter.
SPORTSCASTER DAN