Hodges Wallops Four Homers


1955 Topps baseball card featuring Gil Hodges

Gil Hodges would hit 32 home runs in 1950, four of them coming in
one record-setting game.

On the night of August 31, 1950, the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the
visiting Boston Braves by the lopsided score of 19-3. Leading the
Bums' attack was the 26-year-old Hodges, the team's strapping first
baseman, who blasted out four round-trippers and a single in six at-
bats. He drove in nine of the team's runs, and tied a major-league
mark with 17 total bases in a single game.

Hodges became only the sixth player to belt four homers in a single
big league game, joining Bobby Lowe (1894 - Boston, NL), Ed
Delahanty (1896 - Philadelphia, NL), Lou Gehrig (1932 - New York,
AL), Chuck Klein (1936 - Philadelphia, NL) and Pat Seerey (1948 -
Chicago, AL).

Hodges' victims were starting pitcher Warren Spahn in the second
inning, Norm Roy in the third, Bob Hall in the sixth, and Johnny
Antonelli in the eighth.

What did Hodges think the overnight fame would bring? "I hope it
brings us a place to live," he said, referring to himself, his wife,
a six-month-old son, and a baby on the way. "We've tried everything
to get a decent home to rent," said Joan Hodges, Gil's wife. "We're
living here with my folks (in Brooklyn), and there just isn't enough
room. We've advertised, but didn't have any luck. Maybe, now,
something will happen."

Something did happen, the very next day, after the Hodges' housing
plight appeared in the newspaper. That afternoon the switchboard at
the Dodgers' office lit up with offers from people from all over New
York City, one caller saying, "Tell him to get in touch with me. And
tell him not to hurry about the rent. For a guy like that there
won't be any." Hodges would pay, though, when a few days later he
bought a house in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, within walking
distance of the site of his greatest day at the plate.


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