By now, all of you probably have seen the inside-the-park grand slam by Washington Nationals’ outfielder James Wood.
Down by 5 runs early in Tuesday night’s home game against the New York Mets, the Nationals loaded the bases with two outs in the second inning. Woods stepped up to the plate and took Mets starter Nolan McLean’s first pitch to deep left-center field. The ball glanced off the arm of leaping left fielder Nick Morabito and caromed into center field with the Mets outfielders temporarily losing track of the ball. Wood, who stands 6-foot-6, never stopped running and made it to home plate in 15.15 seconds, well ahead of the eventual throw from the cut-off man.
While the feat was quiet impressive and helped the Nats win, it was likened to all those home runs you see around Little League fields where the hapless wee outfielders can’t get to the baseball and the hitter touches all the bases for that same home run.
Usually, the bases are not loaded.
However, such a thing happened to me many years ago while playing Little League Baseball in New Jersey. Back then, many of those Little League fields did not have fences so any ball that got past an outfielder could turn into a home run. I had been in a slump and found myself at bat with the bases loaded with two outs. Hitting the first pitch, the ball left the bat and landed in left-center field, skipping between the left fielder and center fielder and clearing the bases. That “inside-the-park” grand slam turned things around; I eventually made the league’s All-Star roster.
Alas, there were no cell phones back then and no one in the stands had a camera that night. So, there are simply the memories.
Tony Gwynn among those who have hit inside-park grand slams
Turns out while an inside-the-park grand slam on the MLB level is rare, it does happen.
Wood became the first player to accomplish the feat since the Toronto Blue Jays’ Raimel Tapia did it at Fenway Park on July 22, 2022.
In fact, there have been more than 200 inside-the-park grand slams in MLB history. Wood, however, became the 26th player to pull that off since MLB went to divisions in 1969. Notable players in that club are Tony Gwynn, Mike Greenwell, Terry Pendleton and Paul Blair.
Nice to know a Little League player from New Jersey is in rare company.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Inside-the-park grand slam? Been there, done that many years ago
Reporting by Nick Pugliese, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
