When Lance Berkman hit home runs from each side of the plate April 28, he became the sixth Cardinals player to do so and the first in 17 years.
The six who achieved the feat:
RED SCHOENDIENST
Schoendienst may have been an unlikely candidate to become the first Cardinal to hit homers from the left and right sides in the same game.
The infielder hadn’t hit a homer in the first 56 games he played in 1951.
Then, in the sixth inning of Game 2 of a doubleheader against the Pirates at Pittsburgh, Schoendienst, batting left-handed, hit a solo homer against right-hander Ted Wilks, a former teammate.
An inning later, facing rookie left-hander Paul LaPalme, Schoendienst switched to the right side and slugged a two-run homer, helping St. Louis to a 9-8 victory. Boxscore
TED SIMMONS
Simmons twice hit homers from each side of the plate in games for the Cardinals.
On April 17, 1975, after the Mets scored six runs in the first against Lynn McGlothen at Busch Stadium, Simmons, batting right-handed, hit a three-run homer off left-hander Jerry Koosman in the bottom of the inning.
In the fifth, Simmons, batting left-handed against right-hander Rick Baldwin, launched a solo shot, becoming the first National League player to hit homers from each side of the plate in a game since Pete Rose of the Reds in 1967. Despite Simmons’ efforts, the Mets won, 14-7. Boxscore
Simmons did it again on June 11, 1979, at Los Angeles, hitting a grand slam right-handed against Dodgers left-hander Jerry Reuss in the third, and snapping a 7-7 tie with a two-run shot in the ninth while batting left-handed against right-hander Lerrin LaGrow, giving St. Louis a 9-7 victory. Boxscore
REGGIE SMITH
Like Simmons, Smith twice hit homers from each side of the plate as a Cardinal. Unlike Simmons, his second effort yielded three home runs.
On May 4, 1975, at St. Louis, Smith went 5-for-5, including two solo homers _ a fourth-inning shot, batting right-handed, against Cubs left-hander Geoff Zahn, and a fifth-inning shot, batting left-handed, against right-hander Oscar Zamora. But the Cardinals blew a 4-2 lead after six innings and lost, 8-6. Boxscore
Smith hit two homers right-handed and another left-handed in lifting the Cardinals to a 7-6 victory at Philadelphia on May 22, 1976. He hit a three-run homer against left-hander Jim Kaat in the fifth. His solo shot off right-hander Ron Reed in the seventh tied the score, 6-6. In the ninth, his two-out homer against left-hander Tug McGraw was the game-winner. Three weeks later, Smith was traded to the Dodgers. Boxscore
MARK WHITEN
One week after he blasted four home runs left-handed in a game at Cincinnati, Whiten hit a seventh-inning solo shot off Expos left-hander Kirk Rueter while batting right-handed, and followed with an eighth-inning, three-run shot off right-hander Mel Rojas while batting left-handed on Sept. 14, 1993, at St. Louis. Despite Whiten’s efforts, Montreal won, 12-9. Boxscore
GERONIMO PENA
Pena, who hit 30 homers in his big-league career, hit his first two of the 1994 season in a game at St. Louis against the Padres on April 17 _ 19 years to the day that Ted Simmons first hit homers from each side of the plate.
A second baseman batting second in the order, Pena hit a solo shot from the left side against right-hander Andy Ashby in the third, and added another from the right side against left-hander Mark Davis in the seventh, leading St. Louis to a 5-0 victory. Boxscore
LANCE BERKMAN
Culminating his return to Houston for the first time since the Astros traded him to the Yankees in July 2010, Berkman hit a three-run homer against left-hander Fernando Abad while batting right-handed in the sixth, and lofted a solo homer while batting left-handed against right-hander Aneury Rodriguez in the ninth in the Cardinals’ 11-7 victory on April 28, 2011. Boxscore
