Long John Reilly Does It Twice in a Week
Four men who spent whole careers perfecting one narrow thing, and four afternoons when the record book had to make room.
Ed. 09.19.26
Long John Reilly Does It Twice in a Week (1883)
Cincinnati's first baseman hit for the cycle on September 12 in a 27 to 5 rout of Pittsburgh, collecting six hits and scoring six runs. Seven days later he did it again, going 4-for-5 against Philadelphia in a 12 to 3 win. Nobody in the 143 years since has hit two cycles closer together. Tip O'Neill matched the seven-day gap in 1887, and that is as close as anyone has come. Reilly later became the first player to do it three times.
The Man Who Would Not Miss (1929)
Joe Sewell played his 115th straight game without a strikeout, a streak that began in May and is still the record. He fanned four times that entire season. For his career he struck out 114 times in 7,132 at-bats, about once every 63 trips, swinging a forty-ounce bat that he refused to replace. Asked how he did it, Sewell said to keep your eye on the ball, then admitted that was not much of a secret.
Banks Empties the Bases Again (1955)
Lindy McDaniel was 19, making his first big league start, and holding a $50,000 bonus check. In the seventh, Ernie Banks hit his fifth grand slam of the season off him, breaking a record ten other men had shared at four. It was his 44th homer of a year that also rewrote the single-season mark for a shortstop. The Cubs lost anyway, in twelve innings. The grand slam record lasted 32 years before Don Mattingly hit six.
Alone on the Mound (2011)
The Twins made a one-day trip to New York to finish a game rained out in April. Mariano Rivera came on in the ninth, retired three hitters, and passed Trevor Hoffman with save number 602. Then his teammates shoved him back out and left him there. "For the first time in my career, I am on the mound alone," he said. Seventeen years of work, and he had never once been the last man standing on it.
