Earlier this year, George Will wrote that the record for most combined letters in the last names of players who have hit back-to-back home runs was held by Mark Grudzielanek and Andy Stankiewicz, with 23. That surprised me, as I had believed the current record holders to be Frank Catalanotto and Juan Encarnacion who, by hitting back to back homers in 1998, broke the record that had been held by Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Conigliaro since 1964.
I made a half-hearted attempt to verify that record at the time of Will's column, but was unable to do so. Yesterday, I saw Grudzielanek's name in a post-game highlights box and figured I'd try again. I found that Grudzielanek and Stankiewicz had been teammates with the Montreal Expos in 1996 and 1997, but Stankiewicz hit only one homer in that interval. When I searched for their names in the context of records, I only found speculation that they were likely to have the longest combined last names of any two players who had combined to perform a double play.
I also found the likely source from which Will had gotten that information. It is mentioned in a book written by Tim Kurkjian, and he attributes it to Jason Stark.
Still, I have to wonder if this is just a legend that may have begun with someone having mused, "Now if Stankiewicz homers, I'll bet they'll have the longest last names of any guys who ever hit back-to-back homers". One reason I am inclined to doubt them is that their record setting homers would have had to have occurred before Catalanotto and Encarnacion hit theirs in 1998, so the latter pair would never have been the record holders.
A year or two ago, I stumbled across a website that contained the box scores of every game that every major leaguer every played in. They were minimal box scores, probably only listing at bats, hits, runs and RBI, plus I think extra base hits were appended to the bottom of it. Since Stankiewicz only played in 25 games that year, and since he only homered in one of them, it wouldn't take much effort for me to scan all of them and see if Grudzielanek at least also homered in that game. Can anyone direct me to the site with the box scores that I'm looking for, or otherwise validate to debunk this alleged record?
I made a half-hearted attempt to verify that record at the time of Will's column, but was unable to do so. Yesterday, I saw Grudzielanek's name in a post-game highlights box and figured I'd try again. I found that Grudzielanek and Stankiewicz had been teammates with the Montreal Expos in 1996 and 1997, but Stankiewicz hit only one homer in that interval. When I searched for their names in the context of records, I only found speculation that they were likely to have the longest combined last names of any two players who had combined to perform a double play.
I also found the likely source from which Will had gotten that information. It is mentioned in a book written by Tim Kurkjian, and he attributes it to Jason Stark.
Still, I have to wonder if this is just a legend that may have begun with someone having mused, "Now if Stankiewicz homers, I'll bet they'll have the longest last names of any guys who ever hit back-to-back homers". One reason I am inclined to doubt them is that their record setting homers would have had to have occurred before Catalanotto and Encarnacion hit theirs in 1998, so the latter pair would never have been the record holders.
A year or two ago, I stumbled across a website that contained the box scores of every game that every major leaguer every played in. They were minimal box scores, probably only listing at bats, hits, runs and RBI, plus I think extra base hits were appended to the bottom of it. Since Stankiewicz only played in 25 games that year, and since he only homered in one of them, it wouldn't take much effort for me to scan all of them and see if Grudzielanek at least also homered in that game. Can anyone direct me to the site with the box scores that I'm looking for, or otherwise validate to debunk this alleged record?
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