Leaving the yard in Baltimore

Frank Robinson batting at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium

On his way to winning the Triple Crown and the American League's 1966 MVP award, Frank Robinson 59 years ago today becomes the first and only player to hit a home run out of Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium.

Not just over the left-field fence and into the stands, either.

No, talking here about completely out of the yard.

Final distance: 541 feet – 451 in the air, another 90 on the roll before stopping under a car parked a city block from home plate.

The homer comes in the first inning off Cleveland’s Luis Tiant.

Tiant enters the game with three straight shutouts, but and leaves it with an 8-3 loss in the second game of the Orioles’ doubleheader sweep of the Indians at the venerable ballpark on 33rd Street.

The homer is one of three Robinson hits off Tiant during a Hall of Fame career in which he hits 586.

The Orioles later place a flag beyond the left-field wall carrying the word “HERE” to mark where Robinson's homer exits the stadium.

For his efforts, Robinson receives a seemingly endless standing ovation from the Sunday Mother’s Day crowd of 37,658.

“I was a little embarrassed,” Robinson tells the Baltimore Evening Sun after the game.

Robinson also admits the minute-long ovation affects him in a lump-in-the-throat sort of way.

“It really hit the soft spot,” he says.

Before the season ends, the Orioles win 97 games and the American League pennant by a full nine games over the second-place Minnesota Twins.

They then sweep the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games of the 1966 World Series.

“Sometimes you can point to one incident in a season as a big one,” Orioles pitcher Moe Drabowsky later tells writer John Eisenberg.

“To me,” Drabowsky says, “when Frank hit that ball out of the stadium off Tiant, it galvanized the whole team. It was like, ‘We’re going to be tough to beat this year.’ ”