Jeffrey Hammonds, 1994 Studio #123

The Orioles have pretty much gotten what they should have expected from infielder Mark Reynolds in his first season with the team: plenty of strikeouts and plenty of home runs. Today he accounted for all of the O's offense with a pair of solo home runs, his team-leading 25th and 26th of the year. The second was a real moon shot, a 450-foot bomb that reached the second deck in left field. It was a rare slugging feat; only Rex Hudler of the Angels had ever hit one there in an actual game. Reynolds' blast was also the sixth-longest home run in Camden Yards history, and the second-longest by an Oriole. The only Baltimore player to hit one farther was Jeffrey Hammonds, on September 15, 1997. In the first game of a doubleheader with Cleveland, he crushed an Eric Plunk offering 460 feet to score Roberto Alomar and turn a 5-4 seventh-inning deficit into a 6-5 lead. It's incredible that with all of the power hitters the Orioles have had since moving to Eutaw Street in 1992, creaky, injury-prone Hammonds holds a distance record. I guess that's just a little more proof of what could have been.