Slam Bam!

Creighton Gubanich and Mike Piazza are major league catchers, and they attended the same high school, Phoenixville, in suburban Philadelphia. However, that's where the similarities end, given that the New York Mets' Piazza is a six-time All-Star and one of the most prolific hitters ever at his position and Gubanich is a pudgy 27-year-old Boston Red Sox rookie with 16 major league at bats through Sunday. Yet on May 3 in Oakland, Gubanich became one of only four players to make his first big league hit a grand slam home run. "Someday people will be looking through the record book and see some guy named Creighton Gubanich and wonder, Who was that?" Gubanich says. "Hey, if a guy who once played for five organizations in two years and still lives with his parents can hit a grand slam in his fourth at bat, then you know there must be a lot of them flying out."

He's correct. In this combustible 1999 baseball season, batters are going yard with the bases juiced almost as fast as you can say Creighton Gubanich. On April 23 St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Fernando Tatis, who hadn't hit a grand slam in his first 2,424 pro at bats, became the first major leaguer to smash a pair of slams in one inning. Seventeen days later Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra had two slams in one game. Thus Tatis and Garciaparra joined nine other players on the list of those who had hit a pair of slams in the same game (chart, page 50), a feat rarer than a perfect game, of which there have been 14 in major league history. Sandwiched between those accomplishments was the performance of Seattle Mariners centerfielder Ken Griffey Jr., who on April 29 and 30 became only the 18th player to belt slams on back-to-back days. Then, on May 20, Robin Ventura of the Mets became the first player to have a grand slam in each game of a double-header. Heck, Bruce Aven, a 5'9", 180-pound reserve outfielder for the Florida Marlins, had two grand slams among his seven homers in 123 at bats through Sunday.

Going into this season, the record of four grand slams allowed in a season had been shared by pitchers Tug McGraw, Ray Narleski and Mike Schooler, who, after tying the mark while with Seattle in 1992, said, "I've reached the epitome of grand slamness." Soon there may be a new epitome: Through Sunday, Los Angeles Dodgers righthander Chan Ho Park had already allowed four bases-full homers (including both to Tatis) in 12 starts.

After Houston Astros outfielder Derek Bell connected for a grand slam off San Diego Padres lefthander Heath Murray on Sunday, 60 slams had been belted in the major leagues already in 1999, a pace that would shatter by 18 the season record of 141 set in '96. Of course, this glut of grand slams is merely the most dramatic symptom of the offensive epidemic sweeping the big leagues. Atlanta Braves general manager John Schuerholz refers to the '99-style baseball as a "slo-pitch softball-style game." Through Sunday teams had scored 10 or more runs 191 times this year, and runs had crossed the plate at an average of 10.3 per game, approaching the record (11.1) set in '30. Compared to the '98 season, homers had increased by 15.0%, hits by 3-0%, runs by 7.6% and walks by 6.5%.

In 1881 first baseman Roger Connor of the Troy (N.Y.) Trojans, then of the National League, cleared the bases with a home run for the first time in big league history. (The term grand slam wouldn't be accepted as part of the game's lexicon until somewhere between Bobby Jones's golf Grand Slam in 1930 and the Denny's Grand Slam breakfast in the '70s.) Even while four-run homers have become increasingly common from one decade to the next (chart, previous page), the final decade of the 20th century has been a real slam-banger. Five of the top seven seasons for grand slams by a team have been in the '90s, with the Braves setting the major league mark with 12 in '97. On the receiving end, a shell-shocked Detroit Tigers pitching staff doled out a record 14 in '96. At week's end the scary Cleveland Indians had already hit six bases-full blasts in '99, while Seattle had cracked four, prompting Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus's call "Get out the mustard and rye bread, Grandma, it's grand salami time."

Why the explosion? "The biggest reason is that pitchers are walking more people," says manager Jim Fregosi, whose Toronto Blue Jays had yielded three grand slams through Sunday. "And because of expansion, there are many pitchers in the big leagues who don't have the command that's necessary to pitch at this level. They get behind and have to throw a fastball because that's the only pitch they can get over the plate, and those tend to leave the ballpark."

As Fregosi suggests, the vast majority of the 1999 grand slams have been hit against mediocre or inexperienced pitchers. For instance, Ventura notched the first slam of his doubleheader double against Milwaukee Brewers lefthander Jim Abbott, who had an 8.49 ERA at the time, and his second against lefthander Horacio Estrada, who was facing the ninth batter of his big league career. Garciaparra cracked his pair against righthanders Brett Hinchcliffe and Eric Weaver, who had previously logged a combined 29⅓ major league innings. Only eight of the season's 60 grand slams had been hit against pitchers with more than 60 major league wins.

That provides a stark contrast to Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, who during his career with the Baltimore Orioles didn't allow a grand slam in nearly 4,000 innings (chart, page 52). "I just thought that you couldn't give in with the bases loaded," Palmer says. "Some people might say it's a freak thing, but I was very, very conscious of it. Maybe I was good at math. Giving up one run is a lot better than four." To that end, Palmer would prefer to walk in a run than surrender to a batter who might hit a fat fastball out.

Apparently Park is gradually learning that lesson. "Sometimes you need to give up one run instead of two runs or more," he said last week. Park has seen how he and other pitchers get in trouble when facing a batter with the bases loaded. "You first try to make too perfect a pitch and miss, and then you have to throw what the hitter is looking for. When Tatis hit the second one, I didn't think about any record. I kept going, 'Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.' "

At week's end Park was 4-3 with a 4-84 ERA, and Dodgers manager Davey Johnson was worried that the grand slams could sabotage Park's season because of the enduring damage four salamis can do to a pitcher's confidence. That view was also expressed by Anaheim Angels lefthander Chuck Finley, who had surrendered two grand slams in his 14-year career. "When you give up a grand slam, there's a little more ignominy involved, a little more psychological effect on you," Finley says. "It's like the difference between a 12-play, 75-yard drive for a touchdown and a kickoff return 75 yards for a touchdown."