A Sense Of Occasion Slugger Joe Adcock knew just when to hit it out

Former Milwaukee Braves star Joe Adcock, who died last week at
71, had, to an amazing degree, a sense of moment. In a 17-year
major league career he hit 336 home runs, this despite countless
injuries and the penchant among certain of his managers to
platoon him at first base. In fact, only twice did he play as
many as 150 games in a season, and in only four years did he
have 500 or more at bats. So his home run totals are doubly
impressive. Yet it wasn't so much the quantity of his dingers as
their sheer majesty that made him one of the game's more
memorable sluggers.

Consider these Homeric feats: On April 29, 1953, Adcock became
the first major league player to hit a ball into the centerfield
bleachers at New York's Polo Grounds since the distance had been
increased to the virtually unreachable 483 feet in 1923. On July
31, 1954, he became only the seventh player (there are 12 now)
to hit four home runs in one game. He hit them at Ebbets Field
off four Brooklyn Dodgers pitchers while using a borrowed bat.
In his only other at bat that day, he doubled, giving him 18
total bases, still the single-game record. On June 17, 1956, he
became the only player to hit a ball out of Brooklyn's Ebbets
Field in leftfield, his drive clearing the 83-foot high roof
above the 350-foot sign at ground level.

On May 26, 1959, Adcock made history again by breaking up the
best-pitched game ever with a homer that wasn't a homer. For 12
innings the Pittsburgh Pirates' Harvey Haddix had pitched a
perfect game against the Braves in County Stadium. Then in the
13th, Felix Mantilla reached base on an error and advanced to
second on a sacrifice by Eddie Mathews, and Haddix walked Henry
Aaron intentionally. The perfect game was gone, but the marathon
no-hitter was intact. At which point Adcock hit one over the
right centerfield fence for an apparent 3-0 Braves win. But
after Mantilla crossed the plate, Aaron, who didn't realize
Adcock's ball had gone over the fence, touched second and
started heading to the dugout, thinking the game was over.
Adcock, happily into his home run trot, passed Aaron on his way
to the plate and was called out. His homer was scored as a
double. The final score went into the books as 1-0.

It was quite a career, but Adcock would start another one soon
after he left baseball for good in 1968. Raised on a Louisiana
farm, he returned home to a farm outside Coushatta and became
one of his state's leading breeders of thoroughbred horses. Ten
times he was named Louisiana's top breeder. A gregarious man, he
was, said his son, Jay, "the sort of person who never met a
stranger. Everyone was his friend. He was comfortable with
anyone on any level in any walk of life. He was not in any way
one-dimensional."

Adcock suffered from Alzheimer's disease the last few years. He
died on the farm, near the town where he was born.

COLOR PHOTO: MARVIN E. NEWMAN The spoiler Adcock (here in 1956) broke up Haddix's no-hitter in the 13th inning in '59.