40th anniversary: Stargell hits one out of Dodger Stadium

Posted by Chris Jaffe 
http://www.hardballtimes.com

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Forty years ago today, Willie Stargell did something that no one else had ever done before and no one else had ever done since. He smacked a ball completely out of Dodger Stadium. Not just out of the playing field, but out into the parking lot itself.

On May 8, 1973, the Dodgers hosted Stargell’s Pirates in a night game at Chavez Ravine. In the top of the fourth inning, Stargell came up with a runner on against Dodger hurler Andy Messersmith when he hit his historic moonshot. 

Some places are easy to hit the ball out of. Wrigley Field is famous for having balls leave its park, for instance. In some places, it happens rarely, but at least it still happens. Over a dozen players knocked one out of Tiger Stadium, for example.

But Dodger Stadium is big. It’s one of the biggest parks the game has ever had. That’s why only Stargell has done it in over a half-century of games there. 

Oh, I should note that today isn’t the 40th anniversary of the first time a ball left Dodger Stadium. Wait, what? Yeah, you see, while Stargell is the only person to do it, that doesn't mean he did it only once. Stargell first accomplished the feat in 1969, and today is the 40th anniversary of his second parking-lot shot. We’re still waiting for a third occasion. 

Yeah, Stargell had some pretty damn impressive power. I’ve always had a theory about him. On a few occasions, I’ve heard people wonder how different our impressions would be of baseball if no one ever took stats. It’s an odd counterfactual, but typically the arguments I’ve seen about it are that we’d still have the same all-time greats.

Babe Ruth was such a force that people would’ve noted it no matter what. Willie Mays would’ve captured everyone’s attention even if we didn’t have the numbers. Barry Bonds—more of the same. Generally speaking, the most awesome talents don’t need numbers to inspire awe.

But if there’s one guy who’s reputation just might rise up a notch or two in a world without stats, it’s Stargell. 

Don’t get me wrong. I realize how nice his reputation already is. He made the Hall of Fame, and on the first ballot, no less. But without batting average and career counting numbers, we’d have to rely on the impressions he left in games themselves, and those could be rather powerful things.

Let’s think it through. Without numbers, here’s what would still be true of Stargell. He’s still the guy who hit the ball out of Dodger Stadium, something no one else ever had before or has since. What’s more, that wasn’t a fluke. He smashed the longest homer in Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. It landed so far from the plate that the Phillies painted the seat it hit to honor Stargell. He also hit the longest homer in the history of Stade Olympic in Montreal. Oh, and unsurprisingly, he seemingly monopolized the longest homer memories in Pittsburgh. At one point, Stargell had on his resume the longest homer hit in nearly half of the NL parks. 

Imagine what his reputation would be if that’s all we had to go on. As nice as his reputation is now, it would be quite a bit more impressive. That’s because when Stargell was impressive, he was incredibly impressive. And he was rarely as impressive as he was 40 years ago today, when he crushed the ball entirely out of Dodger Stadium.