You love baseball. Tim Kurkjian loves baseball. So while we await its return, every day we’ll provide you with a story or two tied to this date in baseball history.
ON THIS DATE IN 2016, Big Sexy connected.
Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon, age 42, hit his first major league home run. He surpassed Randy Johnson, who homered for the first time at age 40, as the oldest player in MLB history to hit his first home run. It came against the Padres’ James Shields in the second inning. Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen called it “one of the greatest moments in the history of baseball.”
It was stunning. Colon was not only old, but at the time of the homer, he was 5-foot-10 and roughly 260 pounds, hardly the look of a baseball player.
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“I would say it was one of the longest home run trots in baseball history,” said Ron Darling, Cohen’s broadcast partner, soon after Colon crossed the plate, “but I think that’s how fast he runs.”
Yet Colon’s looks are deceiving. For someone so heavy, he is remarkably agile on the mound, he has great feet, he’s a far better fielding pitcher than people think. He can do the splits, which is impossible to believe given his body type. And he is remarkably strong: He can do backward curls with 35-pound barbells.
“It’s astonishing,” former teammate Dallas Braden said of Colon. “His scapula is so strong. He flips weights around like they are Tic Tacs.”
In 2014, Colon had set a hitting record of another kind when he hit a double to join pitcher Diomedes Olivo of the 1962 Pirates as the only players to record their first extra-base hit at age 40 or older (Olivo made his major league debut at age 41, and pitched for parts of three seasons.) But a double isn’t a homer. The Mets were waiting for him to go deep.
“I’ve seen Bartolo take batting practice many times, he hits homers all the time, so we knew it was just a matter of time,” said Kevin Plawecki, who caught Colon that day and preceded the homer with a double. “I got a good look at it. As soon as he hit it, there was no doubt it was gone. As I was running around the bases, I thought, ‘Holy cow, he finally did it.’ When he got to home plate, he was all smiles, but he’s a very quiet guy, he didn’t say a word. He was as shocked as the rest of us. I said to him, ‘Are you kidding me?'”
The response from the rest of the Mets team was priceless.
“So we get back to the dugout, and no one is in there, no one, it’s just me and Bartolo, everyone is down in the tunnel,” Plawecki said. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought, ‘Do I go over and bear hug him again?’ And then, everyone comes shooting out of the tunnel. It was unbelievable.
“Every guy on the team went over and gave him a big hug. It was nuts.”
Other baseball notes for May 7
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In 1986, center fielder Garry Maddox retired. It was once said of him: “Water covers two-thirds of the Earth, Garry Maddox covers the rest.”
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In 1896, Tom Zachary was born. He gave up Babe Ruth’s 60th home run.
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In 2011, Justin Verlander threw his second no-hitter. He, Sandy Koufax, Randy Johnson, Tim Lincecum and Max Scherzer are the only pitchers to throw two no-hitters, win multiple Cy Young Awards and win a World Series.
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In 1982, first baseman Conor Jackson was born. He is the son of an actor. Conor majored in drama at the University of California. “I never told anyone on the [baseball] team that I would be performing in a play,” Jackson said. “If I did, the team had showed up, it would have been a disaster. We did a bunch of little plays. If 30 guys showed up, that would be about half the audience. That wouldn’t work. I would look around the curtain before the show, wondering, ‘Do I know anyone out there?’ But it was great. I loved it.”
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In 1995, Gus Bell died. He was very good outfielder. He was the father of Buddy Bell and grandfather of baseball’s David, Mike and Ricky Bell. When Gus would come watch Buddy play in high school, he would watch from his car, which he parked beyond the center-field fence. He enjoyed watching the game in peace. “If I made a good play,” Buddy said, “he would honk the horn once. If I made a great play, he would honk the horn twice.”