This is not one of those times.
Yesterday afternoon Brooks Conrad, a 30 year-old career minor leaguer hit a walk-off, pinch-hit, against all-odds, Grand Slam with the Atlanta Braves down three runs in the bottom of the ninth. In the 130 year recorded history of baseball, this has happened only one other time. On July 8, 1950, as the Korean War was just beginning, Jack Phillips hit the first pinch-hit, walk-off Grand Slam (with the Pirates down three) in history.Phillips would finish his MLB career with only nine home runs, Conrad now has five.
Only twenty three men have ever hit a walk-off, Grand Slams with their team down three. Babe Ruth has. Bobby Thomson has. Roberto Clemente? Yup. The last one to do it was Adam Dunn, who is actually paid to hit the ball out of the ballpark, and do little else. And now Brooks Conrad has joined that list, as totally improbable and unlikely as it is. He has even joined a more exclusive list.
More men have walked on the moon than have done what Brooks Litchfield Conrad was able to do on Monday. More sitting Presidents have been assassinated than have hit pinch-hit, walk-off, Grand Slams with their team down three. With the last (and only other) having happened in 1950, it is safe to say this is a once in a lifetime occurrence.
This Braves season has had it’s fair share on hyperbolic moments already. Jason Heyward hit a three-run home run in his first major league swing. A couple weeks later, they got no-hit but Ubaldo Jimenez. There has definitely been no shortage of moments to get caught up in with the Braves this season.
