The Longest Home Run Ever

Elysian Fields Quarterly
by Jerry Dorbin

Click. When the fat of the bat meets the nose of the ball in the sere night air of the desert Southwest, it doesn't go crunch, or crack, or thwack! It just goes click. It is a sound familiar to minor league baseball lovers, yet so arresting that when it is heard eyes are raised from hot dogs and squirming children. Paper cups are lowered, idle ninth-inning conversations cease in mid-sentence and heads snap back, picking up the flight of the ball. And on one memorable occasion in Carlsbad, New Mexico, more than forty years ago, eyes popped as they watched the longest home run of all time.

These were sophisticated fans, residents of a town which fielded teams for many years in organized baseball, yet they gasped in unison, then watched, stunned, as the tiny white dot disappeared into the darkness over a sixty-foot light pole at the 330-foot mark in left field, still rising. The hitter was outfielder Gil Carter of the Carlsbad Potashers of the Class D Sophomore League. A thousand fans were silent for three beats, then Carter circled the bases to gradually rising cheers.

The pitcher was Wayne Schaper of the Odessa, Texas, Dodgers. If he was less discomposed than the fans, it was because he started to turn, then, apparently having some notion what was happening behind him, turned away again. Schaper led 6–0, and had a no-hitter going into the seventh. He walked infielder Ben Brown, and Carter doubled off the center field wall to break up the no-no and the shutout. Shortstop Al Shaw singled off Schaper in the eighth, but died on base...more