These Days, He’s Just Another Face in Crowd

Richard Nixon attended a game between the New York Mets and Montreal Expos last week, and during the game, a split-screen shot on TSN, the Expos’ TV station, showed the former president and Expo outfielder Otis Nixon side by side.

According to Tim Kurkjian of the Baltimore Sun, TSN broadcaster Jim Hughson said, “Let me make one thing perfectly clear. The one on the right is Otis Nixon.”

Trivia time: Who was the pitcher when Willie Mays hit the first major league home run of his career in 1951? (Answer below.)

Add Mays: Here’s what New York Giants’ Manager Leo Durocher had to say about the home run: “I never saw a bleeping ball get out of a bleeping ballpark so bleeping fast.”

Has Durocher ever seen a bigger home run?

Fifteen years later he was managing the Chicago Cubs, and after he watched Ken Holtzman give up a tape-measure job to Philadelphia slugger Richie Allen, he was quoted by Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News as saying: “That’s the hardest and farthest I ever saw a bleeping man hit a bleeping baseball, so help me God. And I played with Babe bleeping Ruth, and I managed Willie bleeping Mays.”

Add Conlin: He said he saw Allen hit at least three balls harder than the one off Holtzman.

“No. 1? Left-hander Johnny Podres pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Connie Mack Stadium, leaving his celebrated straight changeup a little up, a little out over the plate,” Conlin said.

“I remember screaming, ‘It’s gonna hit the lights,’ as the baseball seared the North Philadelphia night at warp speed, the trajectory apparently on a collision course with the lights high, high atop a tower on the roof. Then it leveled off like a Cape Kennedy space launch going into orbit, sped under the first tier of lights and vanished into the blackness.”

Conlin and a fellow writer got a tape measure and went outside the stadium to a parking lot where witnesses said the ball wound up. They measured the distance at 565 feet, the same distance credited to Mickey Mantle for his historic blast at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

Add Ruth: Did you know that his first home run in organized baseball was hit in Canada? Playing for Providence in the International League, the 19-year-old Ruth homered against Toronto.

Add homers: Said Ron Fairly of the Montreal Expos after watching a tape-measure job by Philadelphia’s Mike Schmidt: “I hit one that far once. And I still bogeyed the hole.”

21 years ago today: On June 26, 1968, Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched his fifth consecutive shutout, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0, and extending his scoreless inning streak to 48. The streak was ended in the next game. Gibson was the earned-run average leader that year with a 1.12 ERA.

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: Cincinnati’s Barry Larkin, the National League batting leader at .361, hit only .143 for the United States in the 1984 Olympic Games.

Instant proof: When Vin Scully declared Saturday that Fernando Valenzuela had better instincts for the game than any pitcher he’d ever seen, Valenzuela took the cue. He immediately picked Cincinnati’s Lenny Harris off first.

From Track & Field News: “Flash! FloJo Loses!: No, not a footrace. NBC says it won’t proceed with a Saturday morning kids show based around the Seoul heroine. Instead, the network will do a show featuring that picture of athleticism, comedian John Candy.”

Trivia answer: Warren Spahn of the Boston Braves. Of the pitch to Mays, he said, “For the first 60 feet it was a helluva pitch.”

Quotebook: Dave Anderson of the New York Times, on Pete Rose’s trip to Atlantic City between games to sign autographs for $15 a pop: “If he’s scared, he’s keeping a stiff upper felt pen.”