Bain: Fun facts about inside-the-park home runs

From SABR member Derek Bain at Seamheads.com on June 8, 2016:

One of the most exciting plays in baseball is the inside-the-park home run. The ITPHR is a rare event in today’s game due, primarily due to smaller field dimensions. It can involve a diving attempt at a fly ball that comes up just short, a collision between fielders, a ball that ricochets off the fence and takes a wild bounce, a fielder flipping over a fence along with variations on those themes. Prince Fielder logged an unusual inside-the-parker on a high fly ball that hit a speaker affixed to the roof of the Metrodome.

According to Baseball Almanac, the All-time ITPHR record is held by Jesse Burkett (55), followed by Sam Crawford (51), Tommy Leach (48), Ty Cobb (46) and Honus Wagner (46). I have constrained my research to the 1950-2015 seasons using the event files from Retrosheet. Additional career, single-season and single-game ITPHR records can be viewed at the Baseball Almanac website.

Read the full article here: http://seamheads.com/2016/06/08/fun-facts-about-inside-the-park-home-runs/



Originally published: June 9, 2016. Last Updated: June 9, 2016.