The Top Twenty Home Runs In Cub History

I look forward to reading the HR list, it's been a little slow and I tire of the Roberts talk.  I'm ready for spring training and to get out of all this cold and snow in Iowa.

#2--Did he not also hit one that broke the glass on a building across Waveland?

#3--Didn't Brant Brown hit a homerun in the one-game playoff with SF that put us into the playoffs?  It seems that one might be up there.

Anyway, this will be fun. - TL

Still down by a pair in the bottom of the 9th, the Cubs managed to tie the score at 12 when Orlando Merced strolled to the plate with two on and one out.  

I can still see his swing and the ball sailing into right-center.  Can't recall if it landed in the seats or the basket because so many people were jumping around going crazy.

While this win helped push the Cubs to the Wild Card berth, what made this more memorable for me personally, was that my wife was carrying our unborn child that entire summer.  She probably attended a dozen games over the season, each outing her belly growing larger.  Because our child was due in early October, I thought her to be the "Miracle Baby" given the Cubs surge to the playoffs.  Instead the doc was off by a few weeks and she was born on September 25th, and the '98 Cubs, er, well, uhm.......you know the rest of that story.

And I'll never forget an elated Cubs fan in the bleachers requesting to kiss my wife's belly after the Merced homer.  Caught up in the moment, she graciously agreed.

Not sure if this will make the cut, Al, but it was one Cubs HR I'll never forget.

The drama and emotion involved at time was unlike anything we had seen. It was most certainly the loudest Wrigley has ever been to date in my lifetime.

(I think DeRosa's AB in game 3 of last years NLDS may have been louder..)

However Mr. Cubs' 500th, a line drive shot into the bleachers 12May1970 is my #1. Like all of Banks' HR's, did that one even go above the upper deck seating?

That still doesn't give you a clue as to whether or where I'm ranking it, though.

And yes, Banks' 500th was a low line drive that just barely made it into the first row of the bleachers.

Gotta be in there somewhere.

Two that have been mentioned that I saw in person, Tuffy's three HRs on opening day and Glenallen Hill's rooftop shot (I was in the bleachers with Al that day).

DmL

 I remember it so well because I was in 5th grade at the time and Cubs hysteria was at it's peek as they hadn't made the playoffs in 15 long years. It was such a big deal that our studies in school were put on hold, so we could watch the game.

 What a great game. I remember Sutcliffe's shot so well as the Cubs crushed the Padres 13-0 and as Sutcliffe rounded the bases, I remember thinking "World Series here we come.....Padres can't stop us, even our Pitchers are hitting Home Runs!!!.....Nothing can stop us now!!!" as I joyously tossed my Cubs painter hat up in the air.

What a glorious day that was.

#2 Mark Grace hitting a walkoff against Randy Meyers on a Sunday to sweep the Mets at Wrigley. I believe that was in '89???

One I didn't see personally that has always been a favorite is the Sutcliffe bomb in game one of the NLDS against SD in '84. Our first post season game since 1945 and we rocked for those 2 home games.

And of course, the 2 Sandberg HR's vs. the Cardinals on the NBC game of the week.

On the radio side, Santo called it, "How about back-to-back jacks"?  <giggle giggle>.  Pop!!  Gone!  Cubs Win!  Cubs Win!!

July 29th, 1995...Shawon Dunston hits a game-winning 3-run homer with two outs in the nineth at Wrigley to beat the Phillies 8-7.  The Cubs showing no life being down two, with the Phillies having scored three runs in the top of the 9th to take the lead.  After two quick outs, the next batter was hit by a pitch, and the next reached on an error (@ third, I think).  With Dunston (my favorite player of all time (big suprise, I know)) up next , I said "if he hits this out, there's no way you're getting me in the car to go home".  He hit it out to left on the first pitch.  My scorecard from that game STILL means more to me than any of my other memorabilia.

I don't remember who it was against, or when it occurred, but that was a magical at-bat to me. If only I had been there...

Dave

1938 - Gabby Hartnett's "Homer in the Glomin'."  This one of Mace Brown of the Pirates won the pennant, so I'm thinking that was pretty important.

1971 - Ernie Banks' 500th homer off Pat Jarvis of Atlanta.

That GS was #63 for Sosa (McGwire had hit his #63 the day before). The ball went directly over our heads into the section above us (Loge Level for anyone familiar with the Q). The best part was that the guys operating the "fireworks" set of a volley as Sosa rounded the bases and the crowd was going Bat-S*!t crazy! This really cheesed-off the home team...they wined about it for days afterward. The Padres got 1 unearned run in the bottom of the 9th off of Felix Heredia(shudder) and the Cubs won 6-3. Good times.

Here's two, both from 1969:

1. Ernie Banks homer at Jarry Park in Montreal in the fog and rain and DARK. Expos outfielder Rusty Staub suggested to the umpire that the ball went through a hole in the bottom of the fence. The umpire bought it and gave Ernie only a ground rule double...while Staub slunk off smirking to himself.
2. Hank Aaron's August home run at Wrigley to break up Kenny Holtzman's bid for a no hitter...only the wind blew it back into the park, Billy Williams caught the ball with his back to the wall near the "well" and Kenny went on to get the no-no.      

I can still remember sitting in my car in a Target parking lot and nearly breaking my driver's side window from pumping my fist so hard. Relevant YouTube clip can be found hee-yah!

And does it include home runs against the Cubs? Because Ruth would be at the top...

Kingman hit one that first bounced up against a house down on Kenmore.

You could see through the window that a lady was inside watching the game. She came out and snatched the ball.

Andre Dawson's inside-the-park homer (in Montreal?) that started as a fly ball to left-center that Dave Martinez snared right before slamming into the wall.  He crumpled to the ground in pain, and the ball rolled out onto the warning track.  As his 'spos teammate tended to him, Dawson and his creaky knees rounded third and headed in.

The whole thing prompted me to pick up and read the rulebook for the very first time to see how many other quirks there were...

Great writeup on the rule and a mention of the incident in this article.

on a more personal note, i was in attendance in 97 on august 3rd when sammy hit a walkoff homer in the 12th to win it vs LA, and in 2003 vs the cards on sept. 3rd, another sammy walkoff in the 15th inning. i was sitting in the leftfield bleachers for both games.

It was at the height of that unforgettable summer of 1998, when baseball was fun again. Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa were dueling for who would end up with the most HR's that year.  The nation was enthralled. Beisbol been berry berry good to all. And best of all the Chicago Cubs, for the first time since the Boys of Zimmer of '89, actually looked like they might make the postseason that year as they battled the hated New York Mets for the NL Wild Card that year. Life was good. Woo hoo.

And during the game on Sunday, September 13, 1998 Slammin' Sammy jacks not one but TWO four baggers to pull even with McGuire with 62 homers - and two weeks to go in the season! The place is already electrified and buzzing and Cub fans across the nation eagerly hope to see Sammy take one more swing that day in extra innings to pull ahead of McGuire and bring another victory to the Cubs -- and more fuel to the flames of eternal hope burning across the Cubs Nation, thinking maybe .. just maybe .. that was THE year!

But Mark Grace had other plans:

http://www.spiritwatch.org/media/graceHR98.ram

I had stupidly not taped Sosa's HR's and finally got the tape rolling when Sosa came up .. just as Mark came to the plate. And I almost had a cardiac watching Grace bury the ball in the RF catwalk for the most thrilling walk off game winning Cub HR I'd seen to that time. I must have looked like a madman to my wife, who was learning that year for the first time how nutso I was for the Cubs, and I hollered along with the crazed masses in the Friendly Confines.

"I'm sorry I hit that home run and Sammy couldn't come to the plate. I know everyone was disappointed," Grace said, tongue-in-cheek.

But seeing Sosa do what McGwire also accomplished is something the first baseman will never forget.

"It was chilling when McGwire did it. I was dumbfounded," Grace said. "I thought pretty much the home run race was going to be McGwire's. But when my buddy gets hot, he can hit them in a hurry. And he proved that.

"I just hope Sammy gets the attention he deserves. Not only has he hit 62 homers, but he has carried us. He is without a doubt the MVP of the National League."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/1998/09/13/sosa_61/#more

Ah Sammy. Ahhh Marky .. how the mighty have fallen. But they'll always have a place in our hearts, won't they?

That one wild win kept us in pace with the hated Mets. And everyone knows that in the end, the Cubs managed to somehow outlast them with one more win in the books to take the NL Wild Card. Both the Mets and the Cubs had 7 losses after that date, with one lone win making the difference. The Cubs went on for their first Wild Card entrance into the postseason!

And we all know what happened after that ....

>>>>sigh<<<<<<

The most tragic words of the year I still remember coming from Kerry Wood after that horrible last game at Wrigley when the Cubs got swept by the Braves: "My arm felt fine."

ARRRGH. I remember walking the streets outside Wrigley the next morning, another nice day. The scoreboard told the terrible tale of the loss and I bagged a couple of Wild Card hats and T's and a Sammy "Season To Remember" hat.

But Mark's homer qualifies, Al. Thinks about it!

Several people have mentioned Willie Smith's shot, but no one has mentioned Opening Day 1971, which I was also fortunate enough to attend.  Here is the link for the box score:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN197104060.shtml

Billy Williams crushed the ball past the right field foul pole in the bottom of the 10th for a 2-1 win over the Cards.  Check out the pitching stats in this game.  Jenkins pitched all ten innings for the win.  Bob Gibson pitched the whole game for the Cards and took the loss.  What a fabulous game!

Another home run that no one has mentioned yet is the Gary Gaetti three run shot in the 1998 game that the Cubs won over the Giants to win the Wild Card game.  It was 0-0 into (I think) the 6th inning, when he hit the shot.

In the Cubs' opponent HR category, pick one of Mike Schmidt's shots; that guy owned Cub pitching.

Grace was digging in and just waiting for a pitch to pull!  You could almost see his eyes get bigger when he got his pitch!  

Looked up the box score to verify the date, wow that lineup is depressing.  Can't believe they took the wildcard in 1998 with a starting lineup on that day including:  Servais c, Blauser ss, Alexander 2b, Mieske lf, Brown cf.

After moving from Wilmette to Jax, FL in '85 my parents went without cable all the way until I graduated HS in '97. Apparently they thought that cable and video games were the devil's play things. Needless to say, it was unberable to live without WGN, even though I was lucky enough to get 720AM reception on my stereo all the way down here until '93.

A whole lot of fun times were missed out on live, and no report the next morning in the boxscore or recap could do justice to a kid's imagination and radio play-by-play.

Its been great to hear recaps from so many BCBers, as you can feel the nostalgia creep in to their writing.

Oh, and my favorite would have to be corroborated by others here, but I know Ryno hit two homers against the Reds, including an inside-the-park job that rolled under the left field wall just beyond the bullpen mound I believe in June of '90 or '91. It was a thing of beauty since my treks back north were few and far between, it made the rest of my summer back in Florida that much sweeter.

Again, thanks for putting this together Al. Can't wait to reminisce on the rest of the list.