The Main Event

  • July 24, 1965 – Phillies first baseman Dick Stuart‘s sixth-inning homer at Shea Stadium in a game that saw the Phillies beat the Mets 5-1, makes him the only active major leaguer to have homered in every big-league park — he’d already done it in every AL park with Boston and hit one at the Polo Grounds before it closed.

On a Saturday afternoon in front of 36,921 fans at Shea Stadium, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Dick Stuart led off the sixth inning with nothing more than a routine-looking two-run shot off Mets right-hander Tom Parsons. The Phillies were already coasting to a 5–1 win behind a Jim Bunning complete game, and the homer barely dented the box score. But that swing closed out a quieter, quirkier kind of record: Stuart became the first player in major-league history to hit a home run in every ballpark then in use in the majors — 19 stadiums in all, counting the fact that the Angels and Dodgers shared Chavez Ravine. He’d already gone deep in every American League park during his two seasons in Boston, and, fittingly, he’d even squeezed in a homer at the old Polo Grounds before it was torn down in 1964. Shea, brand new that year, was the last box left to check.

A Career Built for Extremes

Dick Stuart was one of baseball’s great contradictions: a hitter who could put a ball into the upper deck and a fielder who might lose a routine grounder in his own glove. Nicknamed “Dr. Strangeglove” for his defensive adventures at first base — he led his league in errors seven years running — Stuart nonetheless carved out a ten-year career built almost entirely on raw power. He announced himself in the minors with a legendary 1956 season in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he hit 66 home runs, a Class-A record that still stands. He signed every autograph for the rest of his life “Dick Stuart 66,” a nod to the number that made him famous long before he’d played an inning in the majors.

He broke in with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1958 and was part of the 1960 World Series championship team, though his own postseason was forgettable — he was in the on-deck circle when Bill Mazeroski hit the walk-off homer that beat the Yankees. Stuart’s best individual seasons came after Pittsburgh traded him to Boston in 1963: he led the American League in RBIs that year with 118 and belted 42 homers, following it with 33 more in 1964. The Red Sox, tired of his glovework and his running feud with manager Johnny Pesky, shipped him to Philadelphia that November, which is how a career built mostly in Pittsburgh and Boston ended up finishing its final, symbolic lap in a Mets uniform’s home ballpark. Stuart played out his career with brief stops in New York, Los Angeles, two years in Japan with the Taiyo Whales, and a last, faint go with the California Angels in 1969. He retired with a .264 average, 228 home runs, and a defensive reputation that outlived his batting statistics.

Why the Feat Mattered in 1965

Hitting a home run in every park sounds like a modest trivia note today, but in 1965 it carried real weight, for a simple structural reason: there were only 19 major-league ballparks to hit one in, and almost no players moved freely enough between the American and National Leagues to have a realistic shot at all of them. Interleague play didn’t exist. A player who spent his whole career in one league, no matter how great, would never see the inside of the other league’s parks except in an All-Star Game or a World Series — and even then, only if his team got there. Stuart’s path to the record was really a byproduct of his volatility as a player: he was traded from the National League Pirates to the American League Red Sox, then back to the National League Phillies, all inside of two years. That unusual back-and-forth, more a reflection of his defensive reputation wearing out his welcome than any grand design, happened to route him through every park still standing in both leagues. Newspapers picked up on the achievement immediately, framing it as a “first” for a player who by then was as well known for his glove troubles as his bat.

Echoes of the Feat, Before and After

Stuart wasn’t the first player to chase this kind of geographic completeness — he was simply the first to finish the whole major-league set. Back in 1930, Harry Heilmann, a longtime Detroit Tiger closing out his career with Cincinnati, became the first National League player to homer in every park in his own league, a smaller feat confined to the NL’s eight cities of the day. It’s a reminder that the “homer in every park” idea is really a moving target: the number of parks, and the difficulty of visiting all of them, depends entirely on the era.

That’s especially true now. Modern baseball has made the feat both easier and harder — easier because interleague play means every hitter faces every park eventually, harder because there are 30 stadiums to conquer instead of 19. Only six players have ever done it across all 30 current major-league ballparks: Giancarlo Stanton, Manny Machado, Carlos Santana, Randal Grichuk, and Matt Olson got there first, with Juan Soto completing the set most recently, homering at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park in 2024 to join the group. Unlike Stuart, none of them needed an unusual trade path to do it — durability, a long career, and enough plate appearances against every opponent were enough, since interleague scheduling now guarantees a hitter will eventually see every yard in the sport.

A Fitting Footnote

There’s something apt about the fact that Stuart’s version of the record came out of chaos rather than plan — two trades, a reputation that outran his talent, and a career that bounced from Pittsburgh to Boston to Philadelphia in the space of three years. He wasn’t chasing the record; he backed into it, the same way he backed into most of his fame, with a bat that could carry him past his own liabilities. Sixty years later, it remains one of the odder, more charming footnotes to a career defined by exactly that kind of contradiction.

Philadelphia Baseball Events for July 24

  • July 24, 1897 – With no umpire available for a game against Cleveland, the Phillies refuse to keep playing after a dispute over a substitute umpire’s calls and forfeit the game in the bottom of the eighth.
  • July 24, 1985 – Facing Nolan Ryan in a 1–1 game, Von Hayes hits an inside-the-park home run in the eighth to give the Phils a 3–1 win over Houston at the Vet.
  • July 24, 1986 – Traded Tom Foley and Lary Sorensen to Montreal for Skeeter Barnes and Dan Schatzeder.
  • July 24, 1995 – Traded Dave Hollins to Boston for Mark Whiten, who would play 60 games with the Phillies in 1995 and 60 more in 1996 before being released. He then signed with Atlanta.
  • July 24, 1998 – In game two of a doubleheader at the Vet, the Phillies claw back from three straight innings of Mets scoring in the top of the inning by answering with runs in the bottom of the inning. Finally winning in the 12th on a Rico Brogna single.
  • July 24, 2001 – Tomas Perez homers from both sides of the plate in a 10–2 win over the Expos — his first two homers in 733 career at-bats.
  • July 24, 2002 – Brett Myers makes his major league debut, starting a 4–2 win over the Cubs; he’s the team’s first player born in the 1980s.
  • July 24, 2002 – Gavin Floyd throws a no-hitter for Class-A Lakewood but loses 1–0 on two errors, a steal, and a sac fly.
  • July 24, 2003 – Bobby Abreu ties a team record with five RBI in one inning — a grand slam, then a sac fly after the Phillies bat around.
  • July 24, 2011 – Pat Gillick, GM architect of the 2008 champions, is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  • July 24, 2018 – With the game tied in the 16th, Dodgers utility man Enrique Hernandez pitches and gives up a walk-off homer to Trevor Plouffe — the first ever walk-off homer surrendered by a position player.

ICYMI

Philadelphia Baseball Birthdays for July 24

  • Tommy McCarthy (born 1863) – Played a combined 26 games with the 1896 and 1897 Phillies, hitting just .186. By 1889, McCarthy was with St. Louis and led the majors with 656 plate appearances and hit .291/.348/.364. He would go on to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  • Jack Clements (born 1868) – Born in Philadelphia and played 14 of his 17 MLB seasons with the Phillies. Hit .289/.352/.426 with the Phils.
  • Billy Graulich (born 1893) – A catcher and first baseman born in Philadelphia who hit .308 in just seven games with the Phillies.
  • Joe Schultz (born 1922) – A corner outfielder who played for the 1924 and ’25 Phillies.
  • Tod Davis (born 1924) – An infielder who played for the Philadelphia A’s in 1949 and 1951.
  • Shawn Wooten (born 1972) – A corner infielder who played 33 games with the 2004 Phillies, hitting .170.

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