Walk-Off Grand Slams

by David Fleitz (Updated on July 1, 2006)
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Chris Hoiles erased a three-run deficit with a walk-off grand slam homer in 1996.  It came in a 14-13 Baltimore victory over Seattle, in which Hoiles hit his homer on a 3-2 pitch with two outs.

   

Here's the situation:

The home team is trailing by three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning. They get the bases loaded, and then someone belts a grand-slam home run to win the game.

A game-ending home run is called a "walk-off" homer now. Bill Mazeroski's solo homer that ended the 1960 World Series was one; so was Joe Carter's shot that ended the 1993 Series.

We've all seen walk-off homers. 

The question is, how many people have hit walk-off homers with the bases loaded and their team down by three?

I would have guessed that the number of such walk-off grand-slam home runs exceeded 200 or so. The major leagues have been in business since 1876. If each team now plays 162 games a year, and there are 30 teams, that's 2,430 games a year (two teams in each game). There were fewer teams in the past, but even with a conservative estimate of 1,200 games a year or so, there must have been more than 150,000 games played in major league history.

(Good guess. My pitching database lists 173,516 wins by pitchers from 1876 to 2000. There will also be a few forfeits and several hundred tie games that don't show up in pitching wins or losses. So, counting 2001, there have been more than 175,000 games.)

I was surprised to learn that only 23 of those 175,000-plus games have ended with a three-run deficit erased by a grand-slam homer. This kind of walk-off grand-slam is more rare than a no-hitter, and almost as rare as a perfect game.

Here's the list ( a * means it came with two outs):

*September 9, 1881  Roger Connor, Trojans
September 24, 1925  Babe Ruth, Yankees
May 23, 1936        Sammy Byrd, Reds
July 8, 1950        Jack Phillips, Pirates 
June 16, 1952       Bobby Thomson, Giants
July 15, 1952       Eddie Joost, Athletics
*September 11, 1955 Del Crandall, Braves
May 11, 1956        Danny Kravitz, Pirates 
July 25, 1956       Roberto Clemente, Pirates
*August 31, 1963    Ellis Burton, Cubs 
August 2, 1970      Tony Taylor, Phillies
*August 11, 1970    Carl Taylor, Cardinals 
*April 22, 1973     Ron Lolich, Indians 
*May 1, 1979        Roger Freed, Cardinals 
*April 13, 1983     Bo Diaz, Phillies 
*August 31, 1984    Buddy Bell, Rangers
*April 13, 1985     Phil Bradley, Mariners
*August 29, 1986    Dick Schofield, Angels 
*June 21, 1988      Alan Trammell, Tigers
*May 17, 1996       Chris Hoiles, Orioles
*July 28, 2001      Brian Giles, Pirates
May 17, 2002        Jason Giambi, Yankees
*June 30, 2006      Adam Dunn, Reds

A few points:

  • Connor's homer in 1881 was the first grand slam (of any kind) in National League history. Ruth's was the first such walk-off grand slam in American League history and the first in the majors in 44 years.
  • Four Pittsburgh Pirates have done it, but no Dodgers, Twins, White Sox, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Padres, etc.
  • Only three Hall of Famers have ever hit walk-off grand slams when down by three: Connor, Ruth, and Clemente. Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Gehrig, Williams, Musial - none of them ever managed the feat.
  • When Babe Ruth died in 1948, only three men had belted such walk-off grand slams, and they were all connected to Ruth. One was Ruth himself; another was Roger Connor, the man whose career home run record Ruth broke in 1921. The third was Sammy Byrd, who did it for the Cincinnati Reds in 1936. Byrd played for the Yankees in the early 1930s and spent a lot of time pinch-running for the aging Babe Ruth. The writers called Byrd "Babe Ruth's Legs."
  • The last American Leaguer (before 2002) to turn the trick was Baltimore's Chris Hoiles, who was born in Bowling Green, Ohio, in the hospital that stands less than a mile from my house. 
  • Ellis Burton hit one on my 8th birthday, and Buddy Bell hit one on my 29th birthday. Del Crandall of the Braves hit his on Sunday, September 11, 1955, the day I was baptized.

So, if you go to a game this summer and see a three-run deficit erased with a game-ending grand slam, consider yourself lucky. You will have seen something that happens only slightly more frequently than a perfect game. Only an unassisted triple play happens much less often in major league baseball.