The Rarest of Grand Slams

An old cliché of baseball is that you will see something new every time you go to the ballpark. Sunday night at Spring Mobile Ballpark nearly every one in attendance saw something they had never seen before: an inside the park grand slam by Jeremy Moore in the first inning (video can be found here http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/multimedia/vpp.jsp?content_id=17261271).

In franchise history, the Bees have hit 73 grand slams, and just 11 inside the park home runs, but never both on the same swing.

The round tripper was the talk of the stadium for the rest of the game, overshadowing an extremely impressive 12 strikeout performance by Bees pitcher Jerome Williams. The feat is estimated to have happened about 40 times in Major League Baseball since 1950, making it the rarest of rare events. When asked, many of the assorted baseball scouts in attendance said they had never seen it happen before in their many years of watching baseball for a living.

After the game Williams, a professional baseball player for the last 12 years, was asked if he had ever seen such a thing.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Williams said.

“You have now,” Moore was quick to point out.

Kraig Williams