On New Years day, Fernando Tatis celebrated his 40th birthday! Tatis played for eleven years in the MLB with several different clubs. He didn't put up Hall of Fame numbers, but if his HoF candidacy solely depended on his April 23rd, 1999 performance, then he is easily a Hall of Famer.
On April 23rd, 1999, the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers met at Dodger Stadium for the first game of a three-game set. The starting pitchers were Jose Jimenez for the Cards and Chan Ho Park (pictured below) for LA. By the way, two and a half years after this game was played, Park gave up Barry Bonds' record-breaking 71st home run of the 2001 season, breaking Mark McGwire's record for the most single-season homers. Anyway, the Cardinals came into the game with a 9-5 record, first in the NL Central, while the Dodgers were sitting at 8-8, good enough for third in the NL West. The game started off well for the Dodgers and Park. After a couple of sacrifice flies, the boys from the City of Angels were ahead 2-0 after two innings of play.
In the top of the third, after two singles and a hit by pitch, Tatis came up to bat with the bases full. He was already 0-1 on the day, having grounded out to second base in the top of the first. But with ducks on the pond in the third, he sent a soaring drive to deep left field that got out of the yard for a grand slam! Darren Bragg, Edgar Renteria, McGwire, and Tatis all scored on the homer, putting the Cardinals up, 4-2. But St. Louis wasn't done yet. In fact, not even close. Still in the third, Eli Marrero slammed a solo shot to make it 5-2. Later, two more runners scored after an error and an RBI single, making the score 7-2. After a fly out, up came Tatis with the bases once again loaded and would you believe it, he hit another grand slam!!!! His second grand slam of the inning scored Jimenez, Bragg, Renteria, and himself for his fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth run batted in of the inning, making the score 11-2. By the way, all of these runs were given up by Park.
The Cardinals ended up winning the game, 12-5, giving them their tenth win on the season, but the main story was Fernando Tatis. He became the first hitter ever to hit two grand slams in a single inning and set a record for the most RBIs in an inning with eight. It is regarded as one of the best single-game performances in baseball history. Tatis finished the 1999 campaign with a personal best 34 homers and 107 runs driven in. Click here if you want to watch the grand slams.
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Thanks for the info, Matt. Good detail on a historic MLB moment.
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