Nothing Excites Baseball Players

NOTHING EXCITES BASEBALL PLAYERS and fans like a grand slam home run. And watching the same player hit two in the same inning seems almost unimaginable.

But in 1999, the St. Louis Cardinals visited the Los Angeles Dodgers with Fernando Tatis batting cleanup. Normally Eric Davis batted fourth for the Cards; however, a Davis injury caused Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa to move the third baseman into the cleanup spot.

The Dodgers took an early 2–0 lead, but in the top of the third, after two singles and a hit batsman, the bases were loaded for Tatis with no outs. After Los Angeles pitcher Chan Ho Park fell behind 2–0, Tatis blasted a fastball 450 feet into the left-field bull pen for a grand slam.

Park continued to struggle in the third, and the Cardinals kept pecking away. Three more runs crossed the plate for St. Louis, and Tatis returned to the plate, facing Park again with the bases loaded and two outs. Tatis worked the count to 3-1 then hammered Park’s next pitch into the left-center pavilion for his second grand slam of the inning.

Only nine other players in baseball’s history had slugged two bases-loaded home runs in a single game, and none had ever achieved the feat in just one inning. With his grand slam blast, Tatis also set a record for RBIs in a single inning, breaking the old mark of six.

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POINT Fernando Tatis hadn’t batted cleanup until Davis’s injury. Tony LaRussa looked like a genius when his third baseman twice parked grand slams over the fence.

In the Bible, Job also experienced a “twice” blessing. The Lord first allowed Satan to test the obedient and faithful Job, and the man lost everything but his wife and his life. But when Job remained true to God and prayed for the friends who turned on him, the heavenly Father gave him twice as much as he had lost.

GOAL! Read the list in Job 42:12-17 of all that the Lord restored to Job. Praise God for the blessings he gives us.