The Inside the Park Home Run

Card blogs rule.  They've been a big part of my life for eighteen-plus years.  I'm constantly learning about new cards and discovering interesting sports trivia from people around the world who share a common interest.

Last month, Greg over at Night Owl Cards wrote a post about the 1980 Burger King Pitch, Hit & Run set which was the inspiration for this post.  He showed off the back Willie Wilson's card which happened to mention his five inside-the-park home runs in 1979.  That blew my mind and led me down this road of research into inside-the-park home run trivia.  If you're interested in this topic, my two primary resources were Baseball Almanac and Wikipedia.

Here are five facts that stood out to me...

1956 Topps #33

On July 25th, 1956 Roberto Clemente hit the only walk off inside-the-park grand slam in MLB history.

1975 Cramer Circle K Phoenix Giants #12

On September 2nd, 1975 Johnnie LeMaster hit an inside-the-park home run in his first MLB at-bat.  What's kinda cool is that he'd only hit 21 more home runs during his MLB career that spanned 12 seasons and consisted of over 3,000 at-bats.

1986 Topps #162

On October 4th, 1986 Greg Gagne hit two inside-the-park home runs in a single MLB game.  It's the last time anyone has accomplished that feat.

1992 Leaf Gold #435

On May 8th, 1992 Butch Henry hits the first and only home run of his MLB career.  It's the last time a pitcher hit an inside-the-park home run in a MLB game.

2007 Topps Update #UH222

On July 10th, 2007 Ichiro Suzuki hits the only inside-the-park home run in MLB All-Star Game history.  

It's the first and last inside-the-park home run of his career.  I was kind of surprised that Ichiro didn't hit more.  The same thing goes for Rickey Henderson.  Did you know he only hit one inside-the-park home run during his 25 seasons in the MLB?

1980 Topps #482

It happened on July 6th, 1980 in his sophomore season.  

Thanks Greg!  Not sure I ever would have spent so much time looking into inside-the-park home runs had I not learned read the back of Willie's card, but I'm glad I did.

I was also happy that I purchased the 1975 Cramer Circle K Phoenix Giants team set (for the Johnnie LeMaster), because it contains a card of Mike Cramer (founder of Pacific cards):

1975 Cramer Circle K Phoenix Giants #26

Speaking of LeMaster, I also discovered on When Topps Had Balls that he wrapped up his career in Oakland with the A's.  Thank you Gio!

That's why card blogs rule.  They continue to teach me interesting facts about sports and our hobby.

I'll wrap things up with today's question of the day:

Do you have any favorite inside-the-park home run trivia?

Do you ever purchase a card or cards to fit a post you are writing?

I look forward to reading and responding to your comments down below.

Until then...

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!