For years, baseball fans used to argue whether it was Roger Maris's single season record of 61 home runs or Lou Gehrigs 2130 consecutive games played. While both have since been broken, for some reason there is little chatter about breaking either of the performances that supplanted them; in the former case, because we know the player used steroids, and in the latter, perhaps because we don't want to know if he used steroids.
Well, there is presently a 13 year old baseball record that is ripe for the breaking, with no steroids necessary, and if it is broken, the new record will likely last forever.
The record for the longest combined last names of players hitting back-to-back home runs stands at 24 letters. The players who did so were Mark Grudzielanek and Andy Stankiewicz, playing for the Montreal Expos, and remarkably, it was Stankiewicz's only four-bagger of the season. The old record, set back in 1964 by Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Conigliaro, was 22 letters. In 1998 Juan Encarnacion and Frank Catalanotto, playing for the Detroit Tigers came close, and in fact, they were widely cited on the internet as the record holders for several years before it was discovered that Grudzielanek and Stankiewicz had previously out-lettered them.
The Boston Red Sox recently acquired once coveted catching prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who now has the longest name of any player in major league history, and 23 major league home runs to date, and since the Red Sox also have punch and judy hitting outfielder Seth J. Schwindenhammer playing at class A level (with just one home run in over 70 at bats), they will eventually have the prospects of shattering the Grudzielanek/Stankiewicz record by an astonishing FIVE letters!
Well, there is presently a 13 year old baseball record that is ripe for the breaking, with no steroids necessary, and if it is broken, the new record will likely last forever.
The record for the longest combined last names of players hitting back-to-back home runs stands at 24 letters. The players who did so were Mark Grudzielanek and Andy Stankiewicz, playing for the Montreal Expos, and remarkably, it was Stankiewicz's only four-bagger of the season. The old record, set back in 1964 by Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Conigliaro, was 22 letters. In 1998 Juan Encarnacion and Frank Catalanotto, playing for the Detroit Tigers came close, and in fact, they were widely cited on the internet as the record holders for several years before it was discovered that Grudzielanek and Stankiewicz had previously out-lettered them.
The Boston Red Sox recently acquired once coveted catching prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who now has the longest name of any player in major league history, and 23 major league home runs to date, and since the Red Sox also have punch and judy hitting outfielder Seth J. Schwindenhammer playing at class A level (with just one home run in over 70 at bats), they will eventually have the prospects of shattering the Grudzielanek/Stankiewicz record by an astonishing FIVE letters!
