Home Run
Home run is a baseball term . A home run is when a batter manages to run off all four bases as a result of his own stroke and to score a run when home plate is reached . Every other player who is already on one of the bases also scores one point.
Achieve in the game
Nowadays home runs are mostly achieved by hitting the ball within the fair territory over the outfield fence, i.e. the edge of the field of play. A rarer and more difficult variant of the home run for the batter is the so-called inside-the-park home run . The ball does not leave the field of play and the batsman manages to reach home base before the defending team manages to make it 'out'. Mostly this succeeds when the batter is a very fast runner and the defending team makes a mistake or the ball bounces and becomes difficult for the outfield player to reach. However, if the defensive player's mistake is rated as an error by the official scorer , the batter in question does not get a home run entered in his statistics, which, however, is irrelevant for the points scored.
If one or two bases are already occupied by runners and the batter hits a home run , the runners and the batsman score two or three points and this is called a 2- or 3-run home run . If all three bases are occupied, then all four players (the three on the bases and the batsman) can achieve a run , i.e. each get one point. In such a case, one speaks of a grand slam . An inside-the-park Grand Slam is possible, but so many factors have to come together that they are extremely rare.
The chances of scoring a home run differ slightly from stadium to stadium, as neither the distance from home plate to the outfield fence nor the height of this fence are uniformly regulated.
Records
The record in the American major league for the most home runs in a season is currently held by Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants . He achieved 73 single-season home runs in the 2001 season . Long-time record holder was Babe Ruth , who between 1919 and 1927 increased the record to 60 home runs in 154 season games. This was so extraordinary at the time (the previous record was 27 and dated from 1884) that the record was considered unattainable by many experts and fans.
However, Roger Maris succeeded 34 years later and even improved Ruth's record by a home run. For purists, however, the flaw remained that Maris had eight more games of the season available; he scored his last two home runs in games of the season 159 and 161. It was not until 1998 that Maris' record was exceeded, notably by two players within the same season. Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs pushed each other to new heights. McGwire managed his 62nd home run in the game against the Cubs. He finished the season with 70 homers, Sosa with 66. Bonds' current record caused far less media hype than the previous two record improvements, as public attention was focused on the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the existing record only three years old was.
Sadaharu Oh holds the record for the most home runs in professional baseball . On October 12, 1980, the Yomiuri Giants player managed his 868th home run. The record holder in the MLB is again Barry Bonds with 762 home runs, who beat the long-time record holder Hank Aaron by seven runs in the 2007 season. Of the currently active players, Albert Pujols is the only one in the 500 Home Run Club with 633 home runs (after the 2018 season) . However, with his 39 years of age and a drop in performance in the two previous years, he should no longer have a chance to break the MLB record.
particularities
The number of home runs has been falling for some time; the average of 2.01 per game in 2008 is the lowest since 1993. The highest value of 2.34 home runs per game dates back to 2000. The decline since then is also due to the increasingly strict handling of doping substances by the MLB, particularly anabolic steroids, blamed. A special feature is possible in the Oracle Park Stadium: It is located near the Bay of San Francisco , so that some home runs in McCovey Cove (named after Willie McCovey, Giants player from 1959 to 1980) fly into the water - a so-called splash hit .
swell
- ↑ Albert Pujols # 5 . In: MLB.com . Retrieved April 2, 2019.
- ↑ Baseball America 2009 Almanac, ed. By Will Lingo, 2008, pp. 17-19.