So while you were sleeping last night, Miami Marlins cyborg Giancarlo Stanton did this:
114 MPH off the bat, landed on the roof of the seats in left, 475 feet away. Fourth player ever to leave Dodger Stadium entirely. Adios, senor pelota.
That got me thinking. Since I’m completely out of positive thoughts to blog there’s no Cavs game to distract us tonight we could all use some good vibes heading into Game 2 against the Cardinals tonight, why don’t we take a look at some of the longest moonshots in Prog history? Spoiler alert – there’s a lot of this:
5. 478 ft – Jim Thome, 7/27/99 vs. Detroit
Off of: Dave Borkowski
I may or may not but most certainly did not check to see if I could find videos of all these before I started writing this. 0-1 so far. So here’s a video of Thome’s first walk-off homer of his career, from 1994:
Thereeeee we go. It’s almost like we didn’t even lose 8-3 last night.
4. 479 ft – Jim Thome, 7/17/00 vs. Houston
Off of: Wade Miller
…..yeah I’m 0-2 but I’ve had a couple good at-bats and have made a couple nice plays defensively. Thome went yard twice this game, both off this jabroni. On that note, here’s his bomb and FIRE bat flip from Game 5 of the 95 ALCS:
Tell it goodbye! Man that place was rockin’.
3. 481 ft – Manny Ramirez, for Boston, 7/26/07
Off of: Cliff Lee
I swear the top 2 have videos for them. But this one took some research so lay off me, I’m starving. First of all Manny hit two tank-pieces this game, one off Clifford and the other off our dear friend Jensen Lewis. I initially thought it was the one off Lewis, but it wasn’t, which is unfortunate because I had a hilarious picture to use for him, which I’ll share now:
Go Commodores. Secondly there’s some dinger debate on this one. The PDF I found from Wikipedia, so you know, gospel, listed the bomb as 481 feet. But ESPN’s Home Run Tracker (which is actually pretty cool but only goes back to 2006) had it pegged at 447. It doesn’t really matter since there’s no video and thus we’ll never know for sure so here’s Manny hitting a 3 run yackjob and setting a franchise record for RBI in a season (164) (!)
2. 485 ft – Mark McGwire, for Oakland, 4/30/97
Off of: Orel Hershiser
Check it out, a video!
That ball…might not come back. This one’s a perfect snapshot of the steroid era: long, high and goddamn entertaining. And also long. Sweet Jesus.
1. 511 ft – Jim Thome, vs. Kansas City, 7/3/99
Off of: Don Wengert
I mean we all knew that was coming. If you’ve been through the new entrance in center field you’ve definitely seen the bat-pointing statue, and probably walked right over the plaque marking where this puppy landed. Here it is, with bonus Hammy call:
“Jim Thome has just left Jacobs Field, on to Eagle Avenue.”
Something tells me that one might not be matched for a while.
But AI, what’s the longest home run hit at The Prog THIS season, you ask?
442 ft – Alex Gordon, for Kansas City, 4/28/15
God. Damnit.
That yellow circle is the ball, Red? My brother-in-law. The blue circle is not me because I had to take a piss. Overall, not a great couple minutes of my life.
KEEP THE CHIEF
Bottlegate 