The First Ever Major League Baseball Grand Slam Came Long Before the Bambino

 

  

                                        Roger Connor of the Troy Trojans hits the first big league grand slam in 1880. 

In the early years of Major League Baseball home runs were hard to come by.  Ball parks were small, but the ball was dead—much softer with a less elastic core than modern balls.   Bats were heavy slowing down bat speed.  Pitchers had yet to perfect a 90 mile per hour fast ball.  It took a dead eye, prodigious strength, a bit of luck, and usually a tail wind to get a ball over the fences.  Instead of waiting for big innings where sluggers clear the bases, as in the modern game, it was small ball—singles, doubles, stolen bases, daring slides with sharpened spikes high, plus a lot of walks and hit batsmen.

Before there was a Babe Ruth, there was Roger Connor, a towering first baseman—said to be 6’3’’ in an age when men were generally much shorter—who started his career with the Troy, New York Trojans in 1880 at the age of 22. 

Then, as now, there were cash poor teams in small markets who could not afford to pay the kind of stars playing on teams like Chicago White Stockings and clubs in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.  The Trojans were one of them.  They packed their teams with promising amateurs like Conner, a kid who had played club ball in his hometown of Waterbury, Connecticut.

On September 10, 1881 the Trojans were playing another down-at-the-heels small city team, the Worcester Ruby Legs.  Down three runs in the 9th inning, their cause looked hopeless.  But the plucky team managed to load the bases.  With two outs Connor strode to the plate—and blasted the first grand slam home run in major league history. 

The thrilling storybook ending attracted the attention of the mighty New York Gothams.  By the 1882 season Connor was playing in the Big Apple for one of the National League’s elite teams.  Soon he was the star of the team not only hitting for average and power, but despite his size a lithe and speedy base runner.  Sports writers began to refer to the team as the Giants in his honor.  The nickname stuck.

 

                                                Connor played first base barehanded in the era before fielding gloves.

In 1886 Connor gained fame for being the first person to hit a homerun entirely out of the Polo Grounds, a ballpark in which it was notoriously hard to hit homers.

In 1890 Connor was part of the revolt against National League owners that resulted in the short lived Players League.  As a member of a team made up of rebellious Giants, he led the new league in home runs with 14, the only time he ever held a single season home run title.  But he was consistent over an 18 year career.  He came in second four times in the National League and amassed a total of career total of 138 homers—a record that stood until Ruth broke it 23 years after Connor’s retirement in 1897.

 

The towering 6'3" Connor inspired the new nickname for the New York City National League club--the Giants.  He was the beau ideal of a Gilded Age baseball star. 

Ruth actually thought he broke the record when he smashed homer number 132.  Due to incomplete record keeping Connor was then only credited with 131.  Subsequent research shows that the real total was 138.

By the time Connor retired after spending his last seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Browns, he had racked up an impressive record:  233 triples (still No. 4 on the all-time list after all of these years), 244 stolen bases, National League batting crown in 1885 with a .371 average, in the top ten for batting average 10 times, led the league in doubles ten times and triples 7, batted in 1,321 runs, and had a career average of .317.

 

                                                       Connor's Hall of Fame plaque. 

After his retirement from the majors, Connor returned to his Waterbury where he managed minor league teams and basked in the admiration of his hometown.  He lived to see Ruth break his career home run record.  He died in Waterbury in 1931 at the age of 73.

In 1976 the great left handed hitter was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans’ Committee—a fitting tribute for the onetime Home Run King.

 

How Pete Rose Hustled Himself Out of Baseball

 

                                     Charley Hustle making the wrong kind of headlines. 

On August 24, 1989 Pete Rose aka Charlie Hustle was banned from Major League Baseball (MLB) for life for gambling on Cincinnati Reds games while he was manager by an outraged Commissioner of Baseball Bart Giamatti.

Considered a shoo-in for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot, Rose probably doomed his chances for ever being included by for years steadfastly denying gambling on baseball despite mounting evidence, before sheepishly admitting guilt in his autobiography My Prison Without Bars.  

 

                                                      Rose's rookie card still a hot commodity for collectors in mint condition.

Rose was a hometown product of Cincinnati, born to working class parents in 1941.  The switch hitting right hander’s dream came true when he was called to the Big Show in 1963. In his stellar 23 year career as a player, most of the time with the Reds, Rose hit for a .303 batting average, tallied 4,256 hits including 160 home runs and drove in a total of 1,394 runs.  He was famously aggressive on the base paths despite not being a fast runner and perfected a dangerous head-first slide. 

Among his many honors were Rookie of the Year in the National League in 1963, two Gold Gloves for his sparkling defensive play, three batting titles, 17 All Star Game appearances, and three World Championships with Cincinnati’s legendary Big Red Machine.  After playing for the Philadelphia Phillies and Montreal Expos from 1979 to ’84, controversial Reds owner Marge Schott brought Rose back as a player-manager to finish the ’84 season.  

 

Rose's signature head-first dive into base made him one of the most exciting players in baseball. 

He played two more years in the combined role before retiring to concentrate on his bench duties.  He was undoubtedly the most popular player in Reds history and one of the most admired in baseball. 

But Rose was an inveterate gambler.  He claimed his regular bets with a major bookie did not include baseball, then after proof surfaced, that he did not bet on games he was part of.  When that claim, too, was disproven, he could only say that he bet for his team, not against it.  

 

Rose as Reds manager. 

But gambling is the big no-no in Major League Base which was nearly killed by scandals in the 19th Century and again by the Black Sox scandal of 1919.  Baseball ignored a lot of misbehavior, including the nearly murderous attacks of Ty Cobb on fans, regular alcohol abuse by stars like Babe Ruth, and numerous instances of sexual peccadilloes.  It would not, however, forgive gambling. 

After his banishment Rose cut a pathetic figure.  Banned from even setting foot into a ball park, he made his living signing autographs and selling memorabilia.  Even that got him into trouble.  On April 20, 1990, Rose pleaded guilty to two charges of filing false income tax returns for not reporting income from selling autographs and memorabilia, and from horse racing winnings. He was sentenced to five months in the medium security Prison Camp at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois and fined $50,000. Released on January 7, 1991 after having paid $366,041 in back taxes and interest he was required to perform 1000 hours of community service.  

 

Rose would sign anything for a buck, including humiliating admissions. 

Rose’s 2004 autobiography was an attempt to both bring in much needed income and rehabilitate his reputation, possibly leading to a lifting of the lifelong ban and eligibility for the Hall of Fame.  Despite the vocal support of many players and some sportswriters, the book failed on the later count.

The steroid scandals of the early 21st Century were used by supporters to argue that Rose, who never used performance enhancing drugs and who played hard his entire career, deserved consideration to be included in the Hall while disgraced players like Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens remained eligible. 

Baseball is officially un-moved by these arguments. After rumors that he was considering lifting the ban surfaced in 2010, Commissioner Bud Selig quickly denied the reports.  Selig’s successor seemed to be no more sympathetic and many of the sportswriters who admired and championed him have retired.  Baseball moved on. 

Rose died still in disgrace on September 30, 2024 in Las Vegas.  The next January his daughter Fawn Rose and Rose family attorney officially filed documents to remove her father from the Permanently Ineligible List.  In February President Donald Trump put his heavy thumb on the scale and posted on Truth Social that he would give Rose a posthumous pardon and criticized MLB and the Baseball Writers Association over Rose’s ban, calling for reinstatement and an induction into the Hall of Fame.  Commissioner Rob Manfred  met with Trump in April and confirmed that Rose and his lifetime ban was among the topics discussed then On May 13 Manfred instituted a change regarding permanent ineligibility, making it so all bans expire after death of the person on the list.  

 

Pete Rose's daughter Fawn addressed the the crowd at packed Great American Ballpark for a ceremony honoring her father and the unveiling of a commemorative plaque the day after his reinstatement.

Rose, like Shoeless Joe Jackson of the Black Sox scandal, can be considered for induction when the Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee  during the during the 2027 MLB Winter Meetings.  Ironically by then Trump’s support may be more of a drag than a boost if the Orange Menace himself and his MAGA minions are themselves turned out of power and disgraced.

Wanna place a bet on that?