There is one that looms above all the rest. If you’re a true Red Sox fan or just a fan of baseball history, you likely know the particulars. September 28, 1960. A drizzly, cold afternoon at Fenway Park. The Hometown Team mired nearly 30 games behind the Yankees who were methodically making their way to another American League pennant. About 10,000 people showed up on that rainy Wednesday afternoon for only one reason: to see Ted Williams play his final game.
The rest is, well, history. After walking and flying out twice, Williams stepped to the plate with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning and launched the last of his 521 home runs, a majestic shot off Orioles pitcher Jack Fisher. The next half-inning Williams was replaced in left field and ran off the field at a near sprint, famously refusing to tip his cap or come out for a curtain call from his fawning Fenway fans.
Ted’s final long ball – the perfect capstone to a legendary career – is being seen in new light. Color footage of the game shot by a 19 year-old art student has finally come out of the shadows and is part of a new PBS documentary that debuted Monday in conjunction with the 100-year anniversary of Williams’ birth.
It got us thinking, what are some of the greatest home runs hit in a player’s last career at bat?
We mainly looked at two things: context and novelty. A first-ballot Hall-of-Famer like Williams putting the finishing flourish on an other-wordly career by sending one last spheroid flying into the cheap seats makes for a great final at bat. A guy hitting the only homer of his career in his final at bat after 365 plate appearances without one? That’s cool too.
Without further ado:
David Ross, C, Cubs
This one might take the cake. David Ross was the Chicago Cubs 39 year-old backup catcher in 2016. He did not start Game 7 of the World Series because Jon Lester was not the starting pitcher. Ross was only in the game because Lester was called upon to relieve Kyle Hendricks in the bottom of the fifth inning. The chance of Ross even getting a hit off Indians lefty Andrew Miller was somewhere around non-existent. Why? In 2016, righties hit .153 off Miller with 91 strikeouts in 190 at bats. And because up until that point in the playoffs he had allowed one run while striking out 29 in 17 innings. And because Ross was a career .229 hitter and, you know as mentioned, was 39 years old! So of course he jacked a homer to dead center and gave the Cubs a key insurance run in maybe the craziest game ever played. In a parallel universe where Ross doesn’t hit that sixth inning solo shot, you can make a case the Indians are World Series champions and the Cubs’ title drought continues. Never say the baseball gods don’t have a sense of humor*.
*Technically this was not the final time Ross stepped into a major league batter’s box (he drew a leadoff walk in the ninth inning) but it was his final at-bat. Close enough 🙂
Ted Williams, LF, Red Sox
This soil has already been well tilled. It was the perfect final chapter to a singular career in baseball, or for that matter American, history. This home run inspired possibly our greatest contribution to long form essay writing. As John Updike put it in his classic “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu” in the New Yorker, “Gods do not answer letters.”
Mickey Cochrane, C, Tigers
The saddest last at-bat homer of them all. The 34 year-old backstop went deep off pitcher Bump Hadley in the third inning of a Tigers/Yankees game at Yankee Stadium on May 25, 1937. In his next plate appearance, he was hit in the head and nearly killed. The year before, Cochrane had suffered a breakdown related to stress after being named general manager in addition to the Tigers player-manager. He never took the field again. Cochrane and Williams remains the only two Hall of Fame members to homer in their last at-bats.
Albert Belle, DH, Orioles
He didn’t have many friends by this point in his career (did he ever?) and it was a series of meaningless games at Camden Yards, but damn did Albert Belle go out on a tear. In his last four games he hit .412 with a 1.097 OPS including a solo shot off Denny Neagle in the last of the eighth in game 162. The 2000 Orioles were basically terrible all season long, but man did they crush it in the least important games of their season. In their final four games of the season, the Orioles outscored their opponents 52-7. So there’s that.
Rufino Linares, DH, Angels
This actually could have been a very consequential home run if the Angels hadn’t been eliminated from the 1985 AL West playoff race the day before. On October 6, trailing the Rangers by a run in the top of the eighth, Linares hit a two-out, three-run homer. The Angels would go on to win 6-5.
Willie Aikens, PH, Blue Jays
Aikens was never an All-Star or anything but he had a pretty decent big league career. He led all rookies with 21 home runs in 1979 and his 123 OPS+ is 4th in Royals history. On April 27, 1985, Aikens hit a pinch-hit two-run homer in the top of the ninth inning to pull Toronto into an 8-8 tie with Texas. The Blue Jays would go on to win in extra innings, but Aikens was sent to Triple-A a few weeks later and never again appeared in a big league game.
Ramon Santiago, SS, Reds
Santiago remains the only man to hit a grand slam in his final career at bat. Just for good measure, it was a walk off, giving the Reds a 10-6 extra innings win over the Pirates on the penultimate day of the 2014 season.
Ray Lankford, OF, Cardinals and Todd Zeile, C, Mets and Tony Brewer, OF, Dodgers and Eddie Miller, OF, Padres
Baseball is full of strange coincidences. Here are a few. In MLB history, only 55 players have homered in their final career at bat. In 2004, two former teammates both did it on the same day! Ray Lankford hit a pinch hit homer for the Cardinals in a win over the Brewers. That same afternoon, Mets catcher Todd Zeile blasted a three-run homer against the Expos. Weirder still, the two were teammates together in St. Louis for six years.
Then there’s Tony Brewer and Eddie Miller. Both homered in their final career at bats on the same day in 1984. Brewer homered for the Dodgers against San Francisco on the last day of the 1984 season and never appeared in another big league game. He made it count, going 2-for-3 with two RBIs. The only multi-hit, multi-RBI game of his brief, 37 at-bat career. Miller on the other hand played sparingly for four teams over a seven-year career. On the final day of the Padres regular season, he entered the game in the third inning as a defensive replacement for Tony Gwynn. Coming into the game, Miller had never homered in 330 career at-bats. Of course in the ninth inning he homered off Pascual Perez and then left the field forever. But man, what a way to go.