Rambling On About My Glory Days: One Thing I Never Learned – A Home Run Trot
May 31, 2009 by Jack Perconte · 1 Comment
Being from the Chicago area I often get caught up in talk about the plight of the Chicago Cubs. It never takes long for someone to mention the trite phrase, “Anybody can have a bad century.” I was in a similar situation in my career.
Mike mentioned it recently in a comment to one of my posts, that I went 990 at-bats without a major league home run. At the time, it wasn’t something that I thought much about but am certainly glad now that I came through with at least one long ball in my career. In light of what we have witnessed over the last 15 years or so of the steroid era, the two homeruns I hit have become even more impressive, at least to me.
Obviously, hitting with any kind of power was not part of my game. I prided myself in hustle, knowing that was one of the things I had to do to stay in the big leagues. I had the habit of running up to home, running fast to first on all batted balls and walks, and always sprinting on and off the field between innings. My first homerun was a line drive right down the first base line. You may recall that the Seattle Kingdome had a very high right field wall. The chances of me getting one over that wall were pretty slim. So on this particular hit, I sprinted around first base never really bothering to look and see where the ball might land. I continued to sprint around second base thinking triple, only to be met by a smiling umpire who was giving the universal home run signal of circling his index finger. Yes! Homerun - but what to do now?
Talk about being taken out of my element - to have to break down into a homerun trot after 990 at bats was very awkward. Of course, I was elated and deep down knew that nobody could keep me down for a thousand at-bats. The funniest thing about the event was what happened after the game. Ken Dixon, the Oriole pitcher who served up the infamous home run, met me outside our locker room immediately after the game. Ken came up to me and said, “Jack, why did you have to do that? My teammates were riding me so hard about letting a homerun up to you, that I had to get out of there quickly.” We had a good laugh and I thanked him for coming by and making my hit even more special.
Later that season, I hit a legitimate long ball that made it over that aforementioned wall with a good, two or three feet to spare. I saw it the whole way and was able to “break it down” right before getting to the first base bag. I can forever know what it’s like to hit a legitimate, big league homerun and have the experience of going into a home run trot.
Next post I will tell you about how one of my happiest days in the big leagues turned into a never-ending nightmare.
Former major leaguer Jack Perconte is the author of The Making of a Hitter (http://jackperconte.com) and has a baseball instruction site that can be found at www.baseballcoachingtips.net. He has recently published his second book Raising an Athlete – How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport
Great stuff. I look forward to more posts from you, Jack…