Moment #95: MLB Debuts the Home Run Derby | MLB's ALL-TIME MOMENTS
This MLB offseason, we are starting a countdown of the 100 greatest moments in baseball history. These moments helped make the game what it is today. They all had an impact in the short or long term and endure to this day in the hearts and minds of baseball fans everywhere. We continue with #95: the debut of the event that has become a favorite of baseball fans everywhere. In 1985, the Home Run Derby was born.
The first Home Run Derby in MLB history was technically held in 1959, but that was part of a syndicated television program that featured sluggers like Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Harmon Killebrew, Hank Aaron, Al Kaline and Ernie Banks going head-to-head in a nine-inning format, trying to hit home runs. Each player got three outs per inning and at the end of nine innings, the person with the most home runs won.
There were 26 of these contests that took place over a three-week period at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, California (not the one that has been home to the Chicago Cubs for more than a century). Players earned cash prizes for competing and winning; Hank Aaron brought in $13,500 through these contests and Mickey Mantle made $10,000, no small chunk of change in those days. These were the roots in which baseball's modern home run derby were born.
Ironically, after these 26 contests took place, it took 26 more years before this type of contest entered the mainstream in an official capacity during MLB's All-Star Weekend. Baseball's first official Home Run Derby took place before the 1985 All-Star Game at Minneapolis' Metrodome. It featured 10 contestants, some of baseball's best hitters at the time.
It was a thrilling exhibition in which Dave Parker of the Cincinnati Reds won the crown of Home Run Derby champion with a whopping six dingers. Given two "innings" of five outs each, he was the one able to muster the most pop in what was not a well-marketed event yet.
Overall results:
1 - Dave Parker, Cincinnati Reds - 6 home runs
T-2 - Tom Brunansky, Minnesota Twins - 4 home runs
T-2 - Carlton Fisk, Chicago White Sox - 4 home runs
T-2 - Dale Murphy, Atlanta Braves - 4 home runs
T-2 - Eddie Murray, Baltimore Orioles - 4 home runs
T-2 - Jim Rice, Boston Red Sox - 4 home runs
T-7 - Jack Clark, St. Louis Cardinals - 2 home runs
T-7 - Steve Garvey, San Diego Padres - 2 home runs
T-7 - Ryne Sandberg, Chicago Cubs - 2 home runs
10 - Cal Ripken Jr., Baltimore Orioles - 1 home run
What an electric display of power. Can you imagine if that 5-way tie for second place was for first instead? There is no way the league was equipped to deal with a situation like that. The contest has certainly come a long way since. Even though you may have fallen asleep watching the first contest, it was the first and therefore paved the way for future derbies.
Just in the last few years, the contest has undergone big changes, including a bracket format that seems to be a hit among most baseball fans. The new head-to-head format with a timer has appealed to baseball's younger generation, hungry for fast-paced action.
It has also paved the way for controversy. Inevitably, whenever a star player participates and does well in the Derby, people expect them to tail off in the second half of the season. When they do tail off, people are quick to blame the Derby. The curse appeared to be real especially in the mid-2000's when between 2005 and 2008, at least one player who hit 10 or more home runs in the event saw their power greatly diminish in the second half of the regular season.
Whether or not the modern Home Run Derby ruins players' swings is a matter of debate, but one thing we do know is the debate wouldn't even be had if it weren't for a TV show filmed in 1959 or the official contest that followed in its footsteps 26 years later.