RetroSimba

On a wet Memorial Day evening in St. Louis, the Cardinals received a special performance from a player who was starting to show he, too, was special.

In his 16th game for the Cardinals since his promotion from Class AAA Louisville, rookie center fielder Willie McGee had his first four-hit game in the big leagues and sparked a 10-run fourth inning, leading St. Louis to an 11-6 victory over the Giants on May 31, 1982. Boxscore

McGee, batting sixth in the order, stroked two of his four singles in the fourth inning. The 10 runs were the most the Cardinals had scored in an inning in two years and the most in the National League at that point of the 1982 season.

The performance lifted McGee’s batting average to .378 and his on-base percentage to .410. McGee had transformed from a fill-in to a regular who would be integral to the Cardinals’ successful run to their first World Series title in 15 years.

“Willie has been very impressive,” Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said to the Associated Press after the game. “In spring training, I knew he was going to come up here and hit big-league pitching the way he has.”

Seven months earlier, Oct. 21, 1981, the Cardinals had acquired McGee from the Yankees in a trade for pitcher Bob Sykes. McGee had spent five seasons in the Yankees’ minor-league system without reaching the majors.

“After my second or third year, I started telling myself the Yankees weren’t the only team,” McGee said to the Associated Press. “I know I can hit. ”

McGee didn’t make the 1982 Cardinals’ season-opening roster. Sent to Louisville, he hit .291 in 13 games. When outfielder David Green suffered a hamstring injury May 7, the Cardinals called up McGee, who made his big-league debut three days later.

McGee, 23, started in the outfield in just one of his first nine big-league games. The Memorial Day performance helped solidify him as St. Louis’ everyday center fielder.

An all-day rain in St. Louis had left the Busch Stadium field wet. Both teams skipped fielding and batting practice. Attendance for the Memorial Day evening game was a paltry 11,313, even though the Cardinals were in first place in the National League East.

The Giants led 3-1 before the Cardinals battered them for 10 runs in the fourth. The Cardinals had 15 batters in the inning and 12 reached base on nine hits, two walks and an error against three pitchers, starter Renie Martin, Dan Schatzeder and Fred Breining.

Eight of St. Louis’ nine hits in the inning were singles (Ozzie Smith doubled). McGee and pinch-hitter Tito Landrum each singled twice in the inning. Smith, McGee and Landrum also drove in two runs apiece in the fourth.

Orlando Sanchez, a catcher who entered the game 2-for-30 for the season, singled in the first run of the fourth, knocking out Martin. Schatzeder yielded six runs and six hits.

“It’s the momentum,” said McGee. “It’s like when you play basketball. One team gets the momentum and just keeps going. I felt my adrenaline pumping.”

Herzog said McGee’s second single in the fourth inning was the key hit. Batting right-handed against the left-hander Schatzeder, McGee delivered a bases-loaded two-run single to right.

“He had two strikes and he reached out and hit a breaking ball,” Herzog said.

Said McGee: “I’m starting to relax and just let things happen.”

The win, the Cardinals’ sixth in seven games, boosted their record to 31-18, giving them a 3.5-game lead over the second-place Mets.

McGee would go on to bat .296 for the season, with 24 stolen bases and 56 RBI.

In his book “White Rat: A Life in Baseball,” Herzog said, “Willie McGee … became the biggest story in baseball that summer … Once Willie McGee hit town and the kid pitchers started coming through, I began to feel that 1982 might be the Cardinals’ year.”

Previously: Five fabulous facts about Willie McGee

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Linked by two of the greatest single-game hitting performances in the history of big-league baseball, Mark Whiten of the 1993 Cardinals and Josh Hamilton of the 2012 Rangers were very different ballplayers at those stages of their careers.

Whiten, Hamilton and Gil Hodges of the 1950 Dodgers are the only major leaguers to hit four home runs in a game and have at least one runner on base for each of the four, Elias Sports Bureau noted.

On May 8, 2012, at Baltimore, Hamilton went 5-for-5 with four home runs, a double and eight RBI in the Rangers’ 10-3 victory over the Orioles. Each of Hamilton’s homers was a two-run shot _ and each time shortstop Elvis Andrus was the runner on base. Boxscore

On Sept. 7, 1993, at Cincinnati, in the second game of a doubleheader, Whiten went 4-for-5 with four home runs and 12 RBI in the Cardinals’ 15-2 victory over the Reds. Whiten hit a grand slam, two three-run homers and a two-run shot. Boxscore

Whiten and Hamilton each played center field in those games. Each hit all four of his home runs left-handed. That’s where the similarities end.

Hamilton was 30 and in his sixth big-league season when he had his four-homer game. He was a four-time all-star who had played in two World Series.

Whiten was 26 and in his fourth major-league season when he had his four-homer game. He hadn’t been an all-star and hadn’t played in a World Series. He didn’t begin playing baseball seriously until his senior year in high school. Considered a raw talent, Whiten would attend the Florida Instructional League in St. Petersburg, Fla., after the 1993 season.

“The main thing Mark has to understand is to have a game plan when he goes up to bat,” Cardinals hitting coach Chris Chambliss told The Sporting News. “Sometimes you go up there and you’re not really watching what the pitcher is doing to you, or what to look for, but he may be catching on.”

Said Whiten: “The mental part of the game I’ve got to work on. The physical part is all here. I think I have the swing, but if you don’t have the mental approach to this game, you’re lost.”

Signed by Toronto after being selected in the fifth round of the 1986 draft, Whiten was traded to Cleveland in June 1991. Instructor Charlie Manuel taught him a home run swing. Cleveland dealt him to the Cardinals on March 31, 1993, for pitcher Mark Clark and prospect Juan Andujar.

Whiten had 18 homers for the 1993 Cardinals entering the Sept. 7 doubleheader at Cincinnati, but he hadn’t hit one in nearly a month and he hadn’t had any multi-homer games for St. Louis.

In the opener of the Tuesday night doubleheader against the Reds, Whiten had been part of a disheartening defeat. Though he had a walk and a RBI, Whiten was hitless in four at-bats and misplayed a ninth-inning single by Reggie Sanders into a triple that enabled the Reds to rally for a 14-13 victory. The Reds and Cardinals combined to use a major-league record 15 pitchers. Boxscore

(My wife and I attended the game. Disgusted by the Cardinals’ failure to protect a 13-9 eighth-inning lead, I decided, against my wife’s advice, to forgo any further agony and skip the second game. I still regret missing the chance to witness the only four-homer game in Cardinals history.)

Whiten’s first home run of the second game was a grand slam off Larry Luebbers in the first inning. In the fourth, Whiten popped out to third baseman Chris Sabo.

Mike Anderson, making his major-league debut, relieved Luebbers in the sixth. After the first two batters walked, Whiten connected for his second homer of the game. In the seventh, Whiten smacked another three-run homer off Anderson.

St. Louis led 13-2 in the ninth, with one out and a runner on first, when Whiten faced the original Nasty Boy, Rob Dibble. “I didn’t think about it (a fourth home run),” Whiten told the Associated Press. “Well, I thought about it when I was in the field, but not once I stepped into the box and put the bat on my shoulder.”

Dibble’s first two pitches to Whiten missed the strike zone. “I thought he was going to pitch around me,” Whiten said.

Said Dibble: “I was going to go right after him. I knew it was history.”

The next was a fastball down the middle. Whiten swung and launched a home run to center field. “I was impressed by that one,” Whiten said. “It was the best of the four, I think. It was straightaway.”

Whiten took five swings to hit his four home runs. The homers totaled 1,634 feet. Whiten tied the major-league single-game RBI mark of 12 set by Cardinals first baseman Jim Bottomley in 1924. He also tied the big-league doubleheader RBI record of 13 set by Padres first baseman Nate Colbert in 1972.

After the game, Whiten walked into the clubhouse, clutching his four home run balls in a plastic bag as his teammates held their bats aloft in a salute, the New York Times reported.

“You can’t even do what he did in batting practice,” third baseman Todd Zeile said to Sports Illustrated.

Said shortstop Ozzie Smith: “I’ve been around the game 16 years. I’ve seen some guys do some unbelievable things, but nothing like tonight.”

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Discovered at a tryout camp in Greensboro, N.C., at age 18 in the autumn of 1934, Enos Slaughter made a rapid rise through the Cardinals’ system. From almost the first day Slaughter arrived at the Cardinals’ major-league spring training site in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1938, manager Frankie Frisch deemed the rookie the starting right fielder.

Confident and talented, Slaughter collected an extra-base hit in each of his first five regular-season games for the 1938 Cardinals.

Slaughter, a left-handed batter, had an extra-base hit in each of five games against the Pirates and Cubs from April 19 through April 23 in 1938. Slaughter, who would turn 22 on April 27, had three doubles, a triple and a home run in that stretch, with a batting average of .435 and a slugging percentage of .783.

In a report about Slaughter in The Sporting News in May 1938,  J. Roy Stockton wrote: “The farm system and the scouts can take pride in his development and point to him as a shining example of how rapidly a young man can advance in the club’s great organization if he has the stuff.”

Slaughter, a native of Roxboro, N.C., was a standout high school player. He attended the Cardinals’ tryout camp as a second baseman. He had trouble fielding grounders consistently, but displayed a strong arm, speed and hitting ability. The Cardinals signed Slaughter and converted him into an outfielder.

In his first professional season, 1935 at Class D Martinsville (Va.), Slaughter had 25 doubles, 11 triples and 18 home runs in 109 games. He went to Class B Columbus (Ga.) in 1936. Playing for manager Eddie Dyer, Slaughter hit .325 with 31 doubles and 20 triples in 151 games.

At Class AA Columbus (Ohio) in 1937, Slaughter put together a season that earned him his chance at the major-league roster the following year. Slaughter hit .382 and compiled a .609 slugging percentage, with 245 hits, 42 doubles, 13 triples and 26 home runs in 154 games.

While at Columbus, manager Burt Shotton gave Slaughter the nickname “Country.” Wrote The Sporting News: “It appealed to the youngster who loves the cows and chickens and the earth which his family has tilled through many generations.”

At spring training in 1938, Frisch was seeking a right fielder to replace Don Padgett, who hit .314 but committed 11 errors in 1937, and join an outfield of Joe Medwick in left and Terry Moore in center. Slaughter was the immediate choice.

“Enos hits to all fields, has made a goodly share of extra-base blows and has shown as strong a punch against left-handers as against the supposedly easier right-handers,” The Sporting News reported.

In his major-league debut, in the Cardinals’ 1938 opener at home against the Pirates on April 19, Slaughter, batting third, was 3-for-5 with a double, starting his extra-base streak. Boxscore

The next day, Slaughter hit his first big-league home run, a two-run shot in the ninth inning off Jim Tobin of the Pirates. Boxscore

The 1938 Cardinals lost their first three games and appeared headed to a fourth consecutive loss when they trailed the Cubs, 5-2, heading into the ninth inning at Chicago on April 22. Slaughter rescued the Cardinals, hitting a bases-loaded triple and scoring the winning run on an error, giving St. Louis a 6-5 victory. Boxscore

Asked to explain the difference between minor-league and big-league pitching, Slaughter replied, “It’s the better control that makes the pitchers harder to hit up here.”

Slaughter finished his rookie season with a .276 batting mark, .438 slugging percentage, 20 doubles, 10 triples and eight home runs.

He played 13 years for the Cardinals in a 19-season major-league career that earned him induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.

Previously: Hornsby, Musial, Slaughter, Brock all singled for hit No. 2,000

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