It was on this date in 1989 that
Blue Jays’ third baseman, Kelly Gruber, became the first player in team history
to hit for the cycle (single, double, triple, home run in the same game.) It
was a sunny, Sunday afternoon in Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium and the Jays were
playing the Kansas City Royals. The Royals had beaten up on Toronto the day
before, winning 10-5.
Exhibition Stadium was in its
last days of hosting baseball as the brand new SkyDome was scheduled to open in
June. Toronto was off to a bit of a sluggish start in the 1989 season as their
record stood at 5-6 entering the contest with the Royals. David Wells would be
the starting pitcher for the Jays, while Kansas City would counter with Bret Saberhagen,
the Royals pitcher who had surrendered George Bell’s three home runs on Opening
Day the previous season.
Gruber came into the game with a
.385 batting average, two home runs and eight RBIs, and was just blossoming
into the All-Star player that Toronto was hoping he would become. Kansas City
scored six runs in the top of the first and it looked like another long day for
the Jays. Gruber, batting second, put Toronto on the board when he hit his
third home run of the season. Toronto would add another run making the score
6-2 after the first inning.
After Kansas City scored another
run in the top of the second, Toronto would reply with four of their own in the
bottom half, including a two-run double by Gruber. He would ground out in his
next at-bat in the fourth, and fly out to centre-field in the fifth. When he
came to bat in the bottom of the seventh, Toronto trailed 9-8 but had runners
on first and second with nobody out. Gruber drove both of them home with a
triple and later scored himself to make the score 11-9.
Needing only a single to
complete the cycle, the third baseman came up in the bottom of the eighth, and
promptly knocked in his sixth run of the game with a………single. They cycle was
complete, but the game wasn’t. Gruber would eventually score in the inning,
making the score 15-8. The game would end with that same score.
For the game, Kelly Gruber was 4
for 6, and as I mentioned had six RBIs and scored four runs.
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