On Wednesday, Billy Hamilton hit his first home run in more than a year, in Cincinnati’s win over the Pirates.
BILLY BOMB
WHAT pic.twitter.com/ismmE7uwta
— Matt Allaire (@AllaireMatt) May 4, 2017
It occurred to me that Hamilton has never hit an inside-the-park home run in the major leagues. That seems almost unfathomable. With his speed, you’d think it was inevitable, right? After all, he’s been in the big leagues for three full seasons, and parts of two others. He has 14 homers, and all have been of the over-the-fence variety.
In the minor leagues, Hamilton had 13 homers…and five of them were inside-the-park.
Here’s this one, from Hamilton’s time in Single-A at Dayton. Hamilton got all the way around the diamond, and the ball never even reached the warning track:
Then there’s this one, from when Billy was in Double-A (sorry, can’t embed it). Check out the video, if only so you can see Eric Davis shaking his head, incredulous at Hamilton’s feat.
You’ll note that Billy circled the bases in less than 14 seconds. 13.8 seconds, in fact. Faster than the fastest inside-the-park home run ever clocked in the major leagues.
We’re long past due for a Hamilton inside-the-park homer in a Reds uniform. Make it happen, Billy.