farthest hit hr ever?

[nuggets]

Mantle has hit the furthest in a MLB game............564 or something like that I think.

I also read a while ago that a player in the negro leagues hit one further, since the spot he allegedly hit it to was measured from home plate to be closer to 600 feet. Not sure how credible that is though. Nothing against negro leaguers, it's just that documentation wasn't the best for those games.

I believe you are talking about Josh Gibson. He his one out of Yankee Stadium if you can believe that. Mantle would have too, but the Yankees passat used to be all around the top of the stadium and it banked off that. Had it not been there, Mantles shot would have been even farther and gone right over the upperdeck in the Stadium. Anyone who can picture Yankee Stadium knows what an absolute fantasy blast that is.

I was told that Mantle's shot out of Tigers (Briggs) Stadium would have gone about 615. No referencable source here, just a family member who has been a baseball fan for a long time.z

article

[nuggets]

643 feet (9/10/60, Tiger Stadium, Detroit – Pitcher: Paul Foytack, Detroit Tigers – Left-handed)

Detroit's Tiger Stadium (the name was changed from Briggs Stadium) was a favorite Mantle hunting ground for legendary home run blasts. On September 10, 1960, with two out and two on in the seventh, Mickey worked the count to 2-0. Righty Paul Foytack fired a fastball right into the Mick's killing zone and he jumped on it. He crushed a spectacular drive that easily cleared the rightfield roof (something Mickey had done several times by this point in his career), crossed Trumbull Avenue and landed at the base of a shed in the Brooks lumberyard across from the ballpark.

For spectators that day it was another of many tape measure homers Mantle hit during his career. But this one turns into quite a story a quarter of a century later. As told by Mark Gallagher in his excellent book, Explosion!, Dr. Paul Susman, a true Mantle fan, was convinced that this home run was special. As part of Dr. Susman's research for Gallagher's book, he went to Detroit to see if he could get the necessary information to calculate the exact distance the ball traveled.

It turns out that the story of Mickey's historic drive was well known at Brooks Lumber. Paul Borders, a Brooks employee, saw exactly where the ball landed. Susman and fellow researcher Robert Schiewe calculated the distance through Schiewe's use of the Pythagorean Theorem. The result was a prodigious 643 feet. This is the longest home run to have actually been measured from the point it was hit to the point at which it landed. Although it was measured after the fact, the point of impact was well-known and we believe this distance to be completely reliable. This is no computer estimate. This is the distance the ball traveled in the air from home plate to the place where it landed. The Guinness Book of Sports Records notes it as the longest home run in a major league game to be measured "after the fact." It is the longest home run ever hit in a major league game where it was possible to get the exact measurement. Considered along with the Bovard Field homer, it demonstrates that Mickey's unheard of home run distances are no flukes.

From http://www.themick.com/10homers.html#Home%20Run%20#1[/quote]

[proninja]

Red Sox lore has Jim Rice back in the late 70s hitting one onto the Mass Turnpike (over the Green Monster and Landsdown Street beyond) into the back of an open-bed truck. The driver discovered the ball when he was unloading his cargo in Indiana -- some 800 miles away.

Lots of legends about Rice, who was a GREAT power hitter in his prime. He's said to have broken a bat once by CHECKING his swing.

Rice actually broke his bat twice that I know of on check swings. Here's one even more unreal. This happened on the first tee at Kirkbrae Country Club in Lincoln, RI, and I saw it as I was in the group behind Rice waiting to get started. He checked his golf swing and the broke the club without ever making contact with anything. It looked like a strand of spaghetti. Rice has the biggest forearms I've ever seen, so I guess that explains it.

Actually, that's not as impressive as one would think. The only reason I know is because I did it when I was about 18.

[reznorsboy]

Last month I was in Cincinatti watching BP and Willy Mo hit a blast on to the roof of the building in the batters eye at Great American Ballpark. I know it was BP but it was still a monster blast.

[Tavish]

Furthest homer I've witnessed personally is Dunn's blast into the Ohio River off Lima, probably around 550 feet.

That one was a 535 ft blast.

[statsman88]

I don't see anything about Ruth calling his shot? I'm guessin that one went a ways. The farthest one I've ever personally seen was one Manny hit in Boston a few years ago off of Chad Bradford (Who was playing for Oakland) on an 0-2 Count. It hit the Top of that Huge Coke Bottle that is standing on a tower over the Green Monster.

The Bo Jackson Shot that guy was talking about earlier, I think that was in KC, not Seattle, i'm not 100% on that though.

[LiveForever]

I cant believe that no one has mentioned Bond's blast in the World Series. Ya he did steroids but come on that has to be the most impressive since it was in a real meaningful game.

[acsguitar]

Cole Hamels hit one 700 feet with his mind