Going yard, and then some

The Polo Grounds in the early 1960s with its distant center-field fence

New York’s old Polo Grounds is, at the same time, the easiest and hardest place in the major leagues to hit a home run.

A mere poke of 279 feet down the left-field line is good for a home run.

An even less-inspiring slap of 258 feet down the right-field line also is good for a cheap homer.

Now, center field?

Different story there as a hitter needs a bazooka of a bat to clear the wall that sits 483 feet from home plate.

No place in baseball has a deeper center field, which is why only four hitters ever mange to reach those faraway bleachers during the ballpark’s storied existence.

Luke Easter

Luke Easter – all 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds of him —is the first to deposit a baseball into those center field bleachers.

He does that in 1948 with the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues.

Five years later, Milwaukee’s Joe Adcock – another 6-foot-4, 210 pounder – reaches the Polo Grounds’ most distant stands.

The third batter to hit a ball into the center field bleachers there accomplishes the feat 63 years ago today in the Chicago Cubs’ first game of a doubleheader against the newly minted New York Mets.

This batter – a skinny rookie who is a day shy of his 23rd birthday – is the owner of a modest six home runs in his first 63 games in the majors.

Homer No. 7 comes off a 1-1 pitch from Mets starter Al Jackson that, when it finally lands, goes into the center field bleachers.

The two-run homer gives the Cubs a 4-0 lead during the first inning in a game they eventually win 8-7 before a Sunday afternoon crowd of 13,128.

Lou Brock

The batter, though, is not an accomplished power hitter like Easter or Adcock.

In fact, he ends up with just 142 more homers in the next 17-plus season before he retires in a Hall of Fame career built on speed rather than muscle.

The player?

That would be Lou Brock, all 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds of him who would finish his career in 1979 with a then-major league record for stolen bases with 938, most of which come during his final 15-plus seasons with St. Louis.

Coincidentally, Brock’s feat is matched only a day later – on June 18, 1962 – by the fourth and final batter to reach the Polo Grounds’ center field bleachers.

Unlike Brock, this player is more associated with hitting home runs.

The hitter in this game?

That would be Adcock’s Milwaukee teammate, Hank Aaron.