A little over three weeks ago marked the seventieth anniversary of the first full-house home run by a Venezuelan in the Major Leagues.
Such an honor corresponded to Alfonso “Chico” Carrasquel from Caracas, who was then playing his fourth season as a big leaguer in the role of star shortstop for the White Sox. It was Tuesday, May 12, 1953. The Chicago team visited the Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston. In his first turn of the match, in the upper part of the second inning, "Carrasquelito" went to the plate with his teammates Sherm Lollar (3B), Orestes Miñoso (2B) and Jim Rivera (1B) in circulation.
Before the third delivery made by the left-hander Mel Parnell, on account of two strikes without a ball, the Venezuelan striker, who was then 27 years old, hit the ball over the "Green Monster" of Fenway to turn the score 4-2 in favor of the White Sox to the astonishment of 21 spectators.
Read also: Wilser Barrios got his first victory
From his debut in the 1950 campaign to that date, Carrasquel had gone to the plate 1509 times and had 7 home runs in his first three seasons. The bases-loaded drive was the first of four he hit in his ten years in MLB.
The Cat palmed 10
The home run with three on bases or grand slam is considered a rarity in the ball of any category. At the Major League level, they estimate that a Grand Slam occurs every 1500 plate appearances. Alex Rodríguez holds the record for most career home runs with a full house with 25, while Don Mattingly (1987) and Travis Hafner (2006) share the mark of a campaign with half a dozen.
Among Venezuelans, Andrés Galarraga has the highest number with ten grand slams: 2 with Montreal, 7 with Colorado and one with Atlanta. The penultimate of his career is legendary. It was the famous labyrinthine kick that he hit Kevin Brown (Marlins) at Pro Player Stadium in Miami, on May 31, 1997, which was calculated, at first (without the use of the modern Statcast tool), at 579 feet away, which exceeded the 562-foot mark set by Mickey Mantle with the Yankees in 1953, but was later reduced to 529 feet.
From Carrasquel's historic shot with full bases seventy years ago, to the one shot by José Altuve against the Twins last Monday, to reach seven and tie Magglio Ordóñez and Ramón Hernández in third place on the all-time list of Venezuelans in In this department, 177 home runs have been unloaded with the hall full of Venezuelan big leaguers in the last 70 MLB campaigns.
minimum frequency
According to the database of the digital portal www.baseballreference since in 1939, Alejandro "Patón Carrasquel signed up as the first Venezuelan home run hitter, until last Thursday Ezequiel Tovar hit his fourth home run of the year with the Rockies, 216 Venezuelan batters have connected 10 full-round drives, but only 387 (just 177 percent) have come with bases loaded.
king vs. gocho
Among others, the only one that connected in his career stands out: Félix Hernández, who on June 23, 2008, at Citi Field in New York City, with two outs on the board, in the second inning, found Adrián in circulation. Beltré, Jeff Clement and Willie Bloomquist and took the ball from Johan Santa
