Baseball BeatApril 30, 2004
This Date in History
By Rich Lederer

  • 1961 - Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants hit four home runs in a 14-4 victory over the Braves in Milwaukee. Fifteen players have hit four HR in a game and just 12 of those occurred in the regulation nine innings. Every decade is represented from 1890-on except 1900-1909, 1910-1919, and 1920-1929.

    Lou Gehrig, in 1932, was the first player to go deep four times in a game in the 20th century. Mays, Gehrig, Ed Delahanty, Chuck Klein, and Mike Schmidt are the only Hall of Famers to accomplish this feat. Among active players, Mike Cameron, Carlos Delgado, and Shawn Green have gone yard four times in a contest.

  • 1969 - Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds struck out 13 Houston batters en route to a 10-0 no-hitter, the third of his career. (Don Wilson of the Astros turned the tables the following evening, no-hitting the Reds and striking out 15.)

    Only two pitchers in baseball history--Nolan Ryan (7) and Sandy Koufax (4)--have thrown more no-hitters in their career than Maloney. One of Maloney's three no-nos was broken up in the 11th inning.

    Here is how Maloney fared from 1963-1969:

               IP      H     R    ER    BB    SO    W-L    ERA   ERA+
1963    250.3    183    84    77    88   265   23-7   2.77   121      
1964    216.0    175    72    65    83   214   15-10  2.71   133  
1965    255.3    189    77    72   110   244   20-9   2.54   148    
1966    224.7    174    75    70    90   216   16-8   2.80   139
1967    196.3    181    76    71    72   153   15-11  3.25   115
1968    207.0    183   100    83    80   181   16-10  3.61    88
1969    178.7    135    64    55    86   102   12-5   2.77   136

    Maloney was 134-84 (.615) with a 3.19 ERA for his career, which ended prematurely in 1971 due to a damaged Achilles tendon and a shoulder injury. He ranked in the top seven in ERA from 1964-1966 and in the top nine in ERA+ from 1963-1966. The fireballer once struck out eight consecutive Milwaukee Braves--including Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews--and he also fanned 18 Mets in an 11-inning game in 1965.

    According to Baseball-Reference.com, Maloney's most similar pitchers by age include Roger Clemens (26), Steve Carlton (27), Koufax (28 and 29), and Bob Gibson (31). In my opinion, the most comparable pitcher today is Kerry Wood.

    • Comments

    Maloney and O'Toole; two hard-throwing Reds pitchers. I seem to remember hearing games where one or the other was matched up against Koufax or Drysdale, and the question was always: "Which team would score first?"

    Posted by: Linkmeister at May 2, 2004 12:44 PM

    O'Toole and Maloney were a good 1-2 in 1963 and 1964. In "We Played The Game", O'Toole said "Maloney had such a great fastball and curve that he was unhittable if he got them both over...He was as good as Koufax."

    Posted by: Rich at May 2, 2004 6:49 PM