Milton Bradley’s signature game

The enormously talented, if sometimes mercurial, Milton Bradley launches one of the greatest home runs in baseball history 26 years ago today – lining a two-out, two-strike grand slam to right-center off Joe Lisio in the bottom of the ninth to lift Harrisburg over Norwich 12-11 in the fifth and deciding game of the Class AA Eastern League finals.

The slam caps a five-run rally that starts with Bradley already in the clubhouse, believing there is no chance he again has a bat in a championship game seemingly heading Norwich’s way.

Milton Bradley launches his grand slam

Bradley easily does the math. He realizes there are six batters ahead of him in a game the Navigators lead 11-7 with only three outs separating them from a title that Harrisburg previously wins in 1996, owns again in 1997 and then yet again in 1998.

At the behest of Senators hitting coach Steve Phillips, Bradley begrudgingly returns to the dugout, where he awaits authoring a moment like none other in baseball history.

That moment comes after Jason Camilli’s two-out infield single with the bases loaded scores one run and cuts Norwich’s lead to 11-8.

That brings up Bradley for his moment.

After working the count to 3-2 against the right-handed Lisio, the switch-hitting Bradley lines a fastball over the fence in right field for a grand slam that caps a straight-out-of-Hollywood finish on a rainy, misty and altogether surreal night on City Island.

The slam gives Harrisburg its fourth straight Eastern League title, an unprecedented run that remains a record in the century-plus history of the Class AA league.

“I hit the ball,” Bradley says after the game, “and then it seemed real quiet.

“Kind of like The Twilight Zone.”

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