![[MARLINS ROCKIES ]Colorado Rockies' Andres Galarraga ...](/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/andres-galarraga.jpg)
Those who witnessed the now mythic home run swear, to this day, that it should rank as one of the longest home runs in major-league history.
The date was Aug. 31, 1997. The ballpark was Miami’s Pro Player Stadium. The inning was fourth. The pitcher was Rockies’ nemesis Kevin Brown. The pitch was a slider. A hanging slider. The result was a grand slam that gave the Rockies a 7-0 lead.
The batter was Andres “The Big Cat” Galarraga, the Rockies’ powerful first baseman from Venezuela. He launched a ball that landed in the 20th row of the upper deck above left field. In 2011, the spot was measured by ESPN’s Home Run Tracker as 404 feet horizontally from home plate and 82 feet above field level.
The fall after the famous homer, former Rockies manager Clint Hurdle, the club’s hitting coach at the time, went to a football game at Pro Player. Hurdle intentionally sat in the row where Galarraga’s famous homer touched down. Hurdle concluded there was no way anyone could hit a ball that far.
The homer was originally tagged as one of the longest homers ever hit, traveling 579 feet. It was later reduced to a more modest 529 feet, as listed in the Marlins media guide.
“I’ll tell you, that was special, especially against Kevin Brown, bases loaded,” “There were a lot of people from Venezuela in Miami. So that was so special. That was 579 feet, longest home run ever. They changed it down to 529, maybe because of Mickey Mantle, I don’t know.”
Recalled teammate Dante Bichette: “I never saw a ball hit that far. Mark McGwire used to hit them up there in batting practice, but not as far as Cat’s.”
However, the measurements and calculations done in 2011 by concluded that the homer traveled “only” 468 feet.
“Let’s give Galarraga credit for a very long homer, but it was not anything close to 500 feet …” the study concluded.
To this day, the Rockies beg to differ.
Bombshells
Other famous homers swatted by the Blake Street Bombers:
Vinny Castilla: On April 28, 1997 at the Houston Astrodome, Astros closer Billy Wagner tried to sneak a 97 mph fastball by Castilla, a notoriously good fastball hitter. Castilla hit a two-out, solo homer to deep left-center in the 10th inning to lift the Rockies to a 7-6 victory.
Later that season — Aug. 23, to be exact — Wagner again challenged Castilla with a fastball with the game on the line in the Astrodome. The result a two-out, three-run homer in the ninth that gave Colorado a 6-3 victory.
Those homers, and others like it, led to Castilla’s famous saying: “It had better be 100 (mph) if you want to sneak the cheese by the rat.”
Dante Bichette: The first game ever played at was April 26, 1995. It was cold, wet marathon approaching five hours. The New York Mets and were in the bottom of the 14th inning when Bichette smacked a two-run, one-out, walk-off homer, lifting the Rockies to an 11-9 victory.
“I hit a three-run homer off (Atlanta’s) Greg Maddux in the 1995 playoffs, and that homer is a close second, but that homer to open Coors Field is my favorite,” Bichette said.
Larry Walker: On Aug. 31 1997, he blasted his National League leading 39th and 40th homers in a 10-4 victory over Oakland.
Walker hit a two-run homer in the third inning, but he was just getting warmed up. In the fifth, he rocketed a 493-foot shot to the third deck in right field, which was, at the time, the longest in Coors Field history. The moon shot was six feet longer than the homer Galarraga hit against Seattle a few days earlier.
“A home run is a home run and that’s the bottom line,” Walker said at the time. “I’ll open the paper tomorrow and it will say home run. So I’ll take that one that I hit off the top of the fence as well.”
Ellis Burks: On Sept. 28, 1996, in the penultimate game of the Rockies’ season, Burks hit a solo homer in the eighth to give him 40 home runs. He also stole his 32nd base that day. Burks joined Galarraga (47) and Castilla (40) in the 40 home run club that season and finished third in the National League MVP voting.
“Ellis was one of the best high-fastball hitters I ever saw,” Bichette said.
