Palmeiro hits No. 500

The Dallas Morning News ^ | May 12, 2003 | By SEAN HORGAN and BILL CAMPBELL / The Dallas Morning News

[MeekOneGOP]

Palmeiro hits No. 500

05/12/2003

By SEAN HORGAN and BILL CAMPBELL / The Dallas Morning News

ARLINGTON – Rafael Palmeiro now walks with baseball's giants.

The Texas Rangers first baseman became the 19th member of one of baseball's most exclusive clubs Sunday when he slugged his 500th home run in the seventh inning of the Rangers' 17-10 victory against the Cleveland Indians at The Ballpark in Arlington.

The home run came off Cleveland pitcher David Elder, who has the ignominious distinction of surrendering one of baseball's historic home runs. It leaves Palmeiro four homers behind Eddie Murray, the hitting coach for the Indians who is 18th on the all-time home-run list with 504. Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa is in 17th place with 505.

Murray tipped his cap to Palmeiro as he rounded third base, and a Mother's Day crowd of 23,407 offered the first of three standing ovations.

"I knew I got it," Palmeiro said of the home run, which came on a full count with the Rangers leading 13-5.

"Once I touched first base, I had kind of a numb feeling going around the rest of the bases," he said.

The home run came in Palmeiro's last at-bat of a six-game homestand.

That it came on Mother's Day was of significance, too. His wife, Lynne, had predicted that he would hit the monumental homer on this day, and his mother made a special request the night before.

"I talked to my mom before she went to bed," Palmeiro said. "She said, 'All I want for Mother's Day is you to hit that 500th home run.' I said, 'Thanks for not adding any pressure.' "

Palmeiro, 38, has evolved into one of baseball's most intriguing stories, partly because in many ways he reflects the evolution of the game toward a more diverse population of players, as well as the weightier importance assigned to the glamour of the home run.

The long ball has been baseball's captivating magic in the face of incessant threats of labor action and an All-Star Game played to a draw. The nation was mesmerized, and post-strike baseball possibly saved, by the mano a mano competition between Sosa and Mark McGwire as they raced to 61 home runs and beyond in 1998.

The home-run hitting contest before the All-Star Game has become more popular than the game. San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds has risen to the pinnacle of popularity among players largely by hitting 73 home runs in 2001, despite a personality that could curl wallpaper.

If you can go long, you can go far.

In many ways, Palmeiro is the least likely hitter of 500 home runs.

Until he was 6 years old, his family lived in Havana. They immigrated to the United States and settled in Miami in 1971. He was a high school player of note, but he was scouted as a hitter of high average rather than power.

"He is a great hitter with a classic swing," said Rangers general manager John Hart, who coached a Miami high school team that competed against Palmeiro's. "He came to the major leagues as an off-field hitter. I always thought he would become a power hitter, but not one that would hit 500 home runs."

Palmeiro's first full year in the majors was 1988, when he hit a respectable .307 in 152 games as the Chicago Cubs' first baseman. He was a line-drive hitter who went to the gaps – not over the wall – when he wanted to muscle up.

He had 41 doubles and eight home runs that year.

The next year, the Cubs traded him and left-handed pitchers Jamie Moyer and Drew Hall to the Rangers for infielder Curtis Wilkerson, pitchers Paul Kilgus, Mitch Williams and Steve Wilson and two minor-league players.

He hit eight home runs again in 1989. In the next four years with the Rangers, he hit 14, 26, 22 and 37 home runs.

It was during this time that Palmeiro altered his hitting style. Rather than employ the slashing, line-drive style that got him to the big leagues, he employed a greater uppercut while pulling the ball exclusively. That transformed him into a power hitter.

The results speak for themselves on the statistics page and in the way baseball scouts amateur prospects.

"He's one of the guys that in the next 30 years when you draft a hitter, you'll look at the body and look at the swing, and if they remind you of Raffy, you might think that maybe this is a hitter who can develop into a power hitter," Hart said.

"You know, he's a very understated man who has not let stardom affect him."

Palmeiro's standing in the game has often been diminished by critiques that he has never been the best player on any team for which he has played, he has never been the dominant player at his position, and none of his teams has won a World Series.

Still, there's nothing understated about hitting 500 home runs, or hitting 343 of them and not playing less than 143 games a year from 1995 to the present.

Those are the numbers of giants.

E-mail shorgan@dallasnews.com

---

Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/051203dnspopalmeiro500.bfa7245.html

[MeekOneGOP]

The Mother ('s Day) of all homers!

The home run came in Palmeiro's last at-bat of a six-game homestand.

That it came on Mother's Day was of significance, too. His wife, Lynne, had predicted that he would hit the monumental homer on this day, and his mother made a special request the night before.

"I talked to my mom before she went to bed," Palmeiro said. "She said, 'All I want for Mother's Day is you to hit that 500th home run.' I said, 'Thanks for not adding any pressure.' "

The picture in the DMN lead-in . . .

DAMON WINTER / DMN
There it goes ... Rafael Palmeiro's 500th homer

[MeekOneGOP]

[MeekOneGOP]

fyi . . .