Homering in both ends of a double-header on your birthday

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On August 31 of this past season, the Rockies’ Stephen Cardullo homered in both ends of a doubleheader AND it was his birthday. He’s just the 4th guy to accomplish this feat since 1913, and there’s a good chance nobody else did it before then.

Players to HR in both ends of a double header on their birthday since 1913:

Stephen Cardullo 8/31/2016
Tony Perez 5/14/1972
Joe Rudi 9/7/1970
Eddie Joost 6/5/1949

Double headers are so rare right now (the Rockies/Dodgers one this year was likely because of a rainout on a Tuesday as both games were played on a Wednesday) that it seems pretty unlikely anybody will ever again achieve this–although I would have said the same before this season 🙂

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Dr. Doom

7 years ago

I immediately thought that it was ONE of those Charley-Finley-A’s guys who did it, though I was thinking Sal Bando, for some reason. Pretty unlikely to be him, though, as his birthday’s on the 13th of February.

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Andy

7 years ago

Reply to Dr. Doom

Yeah, I love these baseball stats about things happening on guys’ birthdays, but it obviously eliminates half the players right off the bat.

Mark

7 years ago

Honorable mention, perhaps, to Rob Mackowiak (of all people), who homered in both games of a double-header for the Pirates (including a walkoff grand slam in the first game) on the day his wife Jennifer gave birth to the couple’s first son, Garrett, May 28, 2004.

http://www.espn.com/blog/mlb/post/_/id/4876/on-this-day-rob-mackowiak-homers-in-each-game-of-a-doubleheader

PS — “welcome back” to Andy and the site!

Doug

7 years ago

Bill Tuttle homered three times on his birthday, all in double-header games. Of course, his odds were certainly improved with a July 4th birthday.

A-Rod has the most birthday home runs with 6, and is tied with Al Simmons, Todd Helton and Derrek Lee with homers in 5 birthday games.

In all, 477 players have homered on their birthday since 1913, 3 more in the post-season (most famously Willie Mays Aikens with two jacks in the 1980 WS opener), but none in the All-Star game.

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Andy

7 years ago

Reply to Doug

Wait, Garciaparra is not the leader??

Doug

7 years ago

Reply to Andy

Nomar is the only player with a 3 homer game on his birthday, plus a singleton in a second birthday game for a total of four.

Duke Snider, Justin Morneau and Kirk Gibson are the only players with a pair of 2 homer games on their birthdays

Hartvig

7 years ago

Odd that only Joost played when double-headers were common place. Even as late as the mid-60’s almost a quarter of all games- mostly on Sundays- and that number continued to decline thru 80’s until it was down to 2 or 3% and sometimes less.

Cardullo is by far the least like candidate of the 4, considering those are the only 2 home runs of his 29 game Major League career so far.

Doug

7 years ago

Reply to Hartvig

Joost homered in consecutive games only 16 times in his career, but almost half of those occasions were the two ends of a double-header, on his birthday in 1949 and also in these 6 double-headers: 5-11-47, 6-25-50, 6-29-51, 7-15-52, 7-29-52 and 6-4-53, the last one day shy of being a second birthday with this feat.

Editor

Doug

7 years ago

There might have been more mention of Cardullo if not for the Dodger comeback in the second game, with 3 runs in the 8th inning and 5 in the 9th to win 10-8. The coup-de-grace was a grannie by Andrew Toles, another player in his debut season.

oneblankspace

7 years ago

There were an awful lot of doubleheaders on Thursday, August 8, 1985. The games of the 6th and 7th were postponed due to a short players’ strike.

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Doug

7 years ago

Reply to oneblankspace

The Expos and Dodgers played three consecutive double-headers on July 6-8, 1992 after their series earlier in the season was postponed due to the Rodney King riots. The teams received special dispensation to expand their rosters for the series and bring up additional pitchers from the minors.

Richard Chester

7 years ago

Not their birthdays but Dick Kryhoski (6-27-54) and Gates Brown (8-11-68) had a walk-off hit in each game of a double-header.

G Myerson

4 years ago

Reply to Richard Chester

Sal Bando also had a walk-off hit in each game of a doubleheader, 27 September 1972.

Editor

Doug

7 years ago

What’s even rarer than homering in both ends of a DH on your birthday? It’s something that happened only in this game, since 1913. Any ideas?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BRO/BRO194006302.shtml

no statistician but

7 years ago

Reply to Doug

Manny Salvo pitched a complete game on his birthday, that’s probably part of it.

Doug

7 years ago

Reply to no statistician but

Salvo and birthday are part of it. But, something more.

Editor

Doug

7 years ago

Reply to no statistician but

For the record, this game between the Dodgers and Braves is the only time since at least 1913 that a batter and pitcher born in the same year faced each other on their common birthday. Brave shortstop Johnny Hudson went 0 for 2 against Dodger righty Manny Salvo; both players were born 28 years earlier, Salvo in California and Hudson in Texas.