Making it Count – The Stories of Paul Gillespie and John Miller

Wilhelm was also in charge
of pigeon control.

In baseball history, there have been 113 instances of a player that has hit a home run in his first at bat.  Notable names on this list include Earl Averill, Gary Gaetti, Jay Bell, Mike Napoli, and Jermaine Dye.  Will Clark famously did it off of Nolan Ryan.  Hoyt Wilhelm also did it in his first at bat, in his third career game off of the Boston Braves’ Dick Hoover on April 23^rd, 1952.  In that game, Wilhelm would also GIVE UP his first career home run to Eddie Mathews – Mathews second career home run.  Wilhelm would go on to pitch another 1067 career games, amassing 492 more at bats over 21 seasons, without hitting another home run.

I sure hope that Tasby fellow doesn't
ground into a double play.

On the other side of the coin, there have been 47 instances of a player that has hit a home run in his LAST at bat.  Notable names on this list include Ray Lankford, Todd Zeile, Jim Edmonds, Adam Kennedy (not really notable, but wanted to continue the Cardinals theme), Mickey Cochrane, and Albert Belle.  Oh, don’t forget about Ted Williams.  Williams shot was in the bottom of the eighth, pulling the Red Sox within a run of the Orioles on September 28^th, 1960.  Williams almost had to bat again though.  In the ninth inning, the Red Sox loaded the bases with one out, still down by a run.  Red Sox center fielder Willie Tasby grounded to Orioles third baseman Brooks Robinson, who threw over to second baseman Marv Breeding for the out.  However, Breeding made a throwing error, which allowed pinch runner Tom Brewer to also score.  The Red Sox won 5-4 with Williams in the on deck circle.

For 13 of the 47 players who hit a home run in their last at bat, it was their only career home run.  One of these players was relief pitcher Gregg Olson, who only had four career at bats in 14 seasons.  His other three at bats were strikeouts, which gives me a great excuse to plug one of my recent blogs about Dave Kingman.

This is the seventh picture that came
up when I Googled Esteban Yan.

Yes, all of this is very cool.  But there’s got to be a point, right?  Today, I wanted to see if there were ever any instances where a player did both – hit a home run in their first career at bat, and their last career at bat.  And in fact, there are TWO instances of that.  While there isn’t an instance where a player has hit a home run in their only career at bat, a handful of relief pitchers came close.  Esteban Yan did it for the Rays in 2000.  Four years later, he would single in his only other career at bat.  Cardinals reliever Mark Worrell only had two career at bats.  His shot on June 5^th, 2008 was of the three run variety, so he had more career RBIs than at bats.  That’s efficient.

The first player to do this is former Chicago Cubs catcher Paul Gillespie.  He first entered professional baseball in the Brooklyn Dodgers system, appearing in 200+ games for Brownsville, Lake Charles, Grand Rapids and Elmira between 1938 and 1940.  He appeared at four different levels in the Cleveland Indians system in 1941, overall hitting .252 with four triples and six home runs at Salina, Gadsden, Oklahoma City and Knoxville.  In 1942, he started in the New York Giants system, but was traded in the middle of that season to the Cubs.  Some stats are incomplete, but for what stats are available, he seemed to hit right in line with his career numbers, sitting at .258 in stints at Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Ott and Foxx in front of chicken wire.

The Cubs called him up at the end of the 1942 season.  He made his debut on September 11^th, in a 4-3 loss to the New York Giants.  In his first career at bat in the second inning, he hit a solo home run, giving the Cubs the early lead.  He would also have an RBI single later in the game.  Unfortunately, Cubs’ starter Hi Bithorn would walk pinch hitter Hank Lieber in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the bases loaded, giving the Giants the win.  Bithorn would give up 12 hits and 10 walks that day with only one strikeout in 8 2/3 innings.  In case you were wondering, the Giants’ Mel Ott and Jimmie Foxx combined to go 2-6 with a run, an RBI, and four of those walks that day.

Gillespie would only play in four more games, getting 13 more at bats in the 1942 season.  He would also hit another home run in his second career game.  He finished those five games hitting .250 with two home runs and four RBIs, with a walk and two strikeouts.

Gillespie wouldn’t return to the majors until September 13^th, 1944, presumably due to military service.  In nine games in 1944, he hit .269 with a double, a home run and two RBIs, with three walks and three strikeouts.

1945 would be Gillespie’s finest – and last – year in the majors.  He spent the entire season with the Cubs, playing in 75 games, although through the end of June, he only had five starts, and he was only hitting .206.  After July 1^st, he was a different player.  In 50 games – 35 of them starts – he hit .310 with three home runs and 20 RBIs.  Two of those home runs, and six of those RBIs, came in a 20-6 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers on August 15^th.  He hit a grand slam off of Dodgers’ starter Art Herring in the first inning, and added a two run shot in the top of the fourth off of reliever Clyde King.  He would add a single off of King in the top of the sixth before being removed after seven innings, finishing the day 3-3 with three runs, six RBIs and a walk.

On September 29^th, in his last official at bat, in a 5-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, Gillespie hit a home run off of Pirates starter Rip Sewell.  He would enter late in the game the next day, as the Cubs decided the best thing to do would be to play their backup catcher in right field, but he didn’t get a plate appearance.  The Cubs won 5-3, and finished in first place at 98-56.  Overall for the 1945 season, he hit .288 with six doubles, three home runs and 25 RBIs, with 18 walks and nine strikeouts.

In the World Series, Gillespie would only get six hitless at bats in three games, as the Detroit Tigers beat the Cubs in seven games.  In what was surely one cold World Series, the first three games were played in Detroit, and the last four were played in Chicago.  The Cubs came back to Wrigley with a 2-1 lead, but after winning Game 6 in 12 innings, they decided the best pitcher for the deciding Game 7 was the guy who won Game 6 after throwing the last four innings in relief.  That went about as well as you would think it would, with Hank Borowy giving up three runs without retiring a batter, as the Tigers scored a total of five runs in the first and won 9-3.

Gillespie would play in exactly 200 minor league games over the following four years, and after only 12 games with A ball Macon in 1949, he was done.  For his career, he hit .283 with seven doubles, six home runs and 31 RBIs, with 22 walks and 14 strikeouts.  He passed away on August 11^th, 1970 at the age of 49.

While Gillespie was by no means a star, he was awfully greedy, hitting FOUR home runs in between his first and last career home runs/at bats.  We’re going to look at the one guy who came in, flipped the bat in his first at bat, and dropped the microphone after his last, with NOTHING in between.

John Miller was signed by the New York Yankees in 1962, and through his first three stops at Harlan, Fort Lauderdale and Greensboro, he hit .269 with 28 doubles, 12 triples and 12 home runs.  Again at Greensboro in 1964, he hit .276 with 21 doubles, four triples and 24 home runs.  This earned him a promotion to AA Columbus in 1965, where his numbers dropped a bit to .262 with 15 doubles, four triples and 10 home runs.

He would start out 1966 back at Columbus, where in 93 games, Miller hit .312 with 19 doubles and 16 home runs.  This earned him a callup to AAA Toledo, where he only hit .206 with four home runs in 20 games.  With the Yankees going nowhere, they decided to give him a shot.  He made his Major League debut on September 11^th, hitting a home run in his first career at bat off of Red Sox’ starter Lee Strange in the top of the second in a Yankees 4-2 victory.  Miller would literally do nothing else the rest of the season.  In six games, he hit .087 with a home run, two RBIs and nine strikeouts.

Before the 1967 season, he was traded with Jack Cullen to the Los Angeles Dodgers for John Kennedy.  He was originally assigned to the minor league Dodgers of the Arizona Instructional League, but after hitting .300 with six doubles, two triples, two home runs and 24 RBIs, he was called up to AAA Spokane.  There, he hit .254 with 11 doubles, three triples, eight home runs and 32 RBIs.

Miller would spend the entire 1968 season back in Spokane, playing the bulk of his time at third base, but also being used in the outfield and at first base.  For the season, he hit .287 with 25 doubles, three triples, 12 home runs and 70 RBIs.

1969 would see Miller return to the majors.  It looks like he started the season with the Dodgers, but the most games he played in any given month was six in the month of June.  It looks like he may have been sent back down to Spokane for 18 games in early August.  He made good use of his time there, hitting .452 with six doubles, one triple, two home runs and 13 RBIs.  His eight walks vs. just two strikeouts pushed his on base percentage to .507.

While in the majors that season, he only played in 26 games, with only five starts.  He only had more than one at bat in eight of those games.  On September 23^rd, Miller, pinch hitting for pitcher Al McBean, hit a solo home run off of Jim Merritt in a 6-3 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

Four days later, he was announced as a pinch hitter for pitcher Jim Brewer in the bottom of the 11^th with two on and the game tied at one apiece, to face Giants pitcher Ron Bryant.  Bryant was then relieved by Don McMahon.  Len Gabrielson then pinch hit for Miller.  Gabrielson would go on to single to center field, scoring Manny Mota and giving the Dodgers the 2-1 victory.

For the season, Miller hit .211 with one double, one home run and one RBI, with two walks and nine strikeouts.  In 20 career games in the field across 116 2/3 innings, he never made a single error.  He would never play in another professional game, in the United States anyway.  He went on to play in Japan for three seasons, all with the Chunichi Dragons.  In those three seasons, he would hit a combined .245 with 43 doubles, nine triples, 79 home runs and 222 RBIs.

Gillespie, and certainly Miller, made the brief time they had in the majors count.  Well, the beginning and the end of their time in the majors, anyway.