M's Cameron joins diverse club

It is one of the most prestigious, and certainly among the most exclusive, groupings in baseball, and yet it reflects perfectly the meritocracy of the game.

In the four-homer club, to which just 13 players belong, all-time superstars mingle with small-time journeymen. Lou Gehrig, the dignified Iron Horse, is a member, and so is Fat Pat Seerey, the wild-swinging outfielder who, at 5 feet 9, 230 pounds, ate himself out of the game at age 26. The Say Hey Kid, Willie Mays, is represented, and so is Hittin' Mark Whiten, who never really lived up to his nickname in a rambling 11-year career that spanned nine different teams — and included one glorious day.

Babe Ruth? Sorry, Bambino, you don't qualify. Neither does Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire or Reggie Jackson. But Bobby Lowe, a 150-pound leadoff hitter for the Boston Beaneaters, did it in 1894, the first and most unlikely member of the four-homer club.

Lowe's achievement merits an asterisk. Two weeks before his big day, a fire destroyed Boston's regular ballpark, the South End Grounds. Their replacement stadium, Congress Street Grounds, featured a left-field fence that was only 250 feet from home plate. A more accurate measure of Lowe's power is the fact that in 18 major-league seasons, he hit 71 home runs.

Put an asterisk, also, beside Chuck Klein, Seerey and Mike Schmidt. All of them hit their fourth homer in extra innings.

Five of the club members eventually made a slightly less exclusive and slightly more prestigious club, the Hall of Fame: Gehrig, Mays, Schmidt, Klein and Ed Delahanty. Many believe that Gil Hodges belongs in the Hall, and Joe Adcock was a noted slugger who was one of just three players — Hank Aaron and Lou Brock being the others — to hit a homer into the center-field bleachers at the Polo Grounds.

It's too early to know whether Mike Cameron belongs with Bob Horner and Rocky Colavito, very good players who had one surreal day, or if he's heading to more hallowed ground.

"I've always said, when he put it together, I really thought he could be Sammy Sosa," said Jack McKeon, who managed Cameron with the Reds in 1999. "It might take another year or two, but he's on his way. I understand when you trade for (Ken) Griffey, you have to give up something, but that trade looks a little in Seattle's favor."

Now retired after being fired in 2000, McKeon watched via television Cameron's final two attempts for a fifth home run.

"I couldn't have been happier," he said. "He's a nice kid, a hard worker, a good team player, does the little things, never complains. I watched his interview after — same old Mike Cameron. I love him to death."

Also watching those final two at-bats, in Northern Virginia, was David Vincent, the nation's leading home-run researcher. A day later, after crunching all the numbers, Vincent could barely control his excitement.

"Where do you start with this game?" he said. "In 131 years, only one guy has ever hit two home runs in the first inning. Bret Boone does it, and one batter later, Cameron does it. And you've got a guy hitting four, and a teammate two. What are the odds of that? Pretty good. It's the third time it's happened."

Putting Cameron's achievement in perspective, Vincent said, "It's in the pantheon of baseball feats. There have been more perfect games, and way more things like cycles and no-hitters. About the only thing I can think of is unassisted triple plays. There's only been 10 of those."

Here are some other oddities and lore from the four-homer club, compiled with help from Vincent, Total Baseball, The Sporting News and other sources:

• Cameron was the only four-homer club member to have three homers after three innings — but not the first player in history to do so. Carl Reynolds of the White Sox had a homer in the first, second and third innings on July 2, 1930 (the first two off Hall of Famer Red Ruffing) but added no more.

• Schmidt, on the other hand, didn't hit his first homer until the fifth inning.

• Cameron took a good shot at five homers, with a ninth-inning drive that was hauled in near the warning track. He wasn't the only one to make a strong run at five in a game. Klein sent Paul Waner to the fence for an out in the second inning, Gehrig hit a ball to the wall in his final at-bat, and Mays was waiting on deck when the final out was made.

• Seerey made a strong run at becoming the only player to hit four homers in a game twice. On July 13, 1945, playing for the Indians, he had three homers and a triple to deep left-center at Yankee Stadium.

• Almost every Braves game was televised on Ted Turner's Superstation, but when Horner went deep four times in 1986, the game was taped so WTBS could broadcast the Goodwill Games live.

• The only Hall of Famer victimized in a four-homer game was Warren Spahn, who threw the first one hit by Hodges.

• Speaking of Spahn, in the same weekend series in which Mays hit his four homers in the Sunday finale, Spahn had hurled a no-hitter against the Giants on Friday.

• Whiten was the only switch-hitter, Klein and Gehrig the only left-handed hitters, Whiten the only one to hit a grand slam, and Delahanty and Horner the only ones to do it in losing games.

• Whiten had the most runs batted in, a record-tying 12, while Cameron, with four solos, had the fewest.

• Whiten's first two homers were off Mike Anderson, making his major-league debut.

• Besides the 13 major-leaguers who have hit four homers in a game, four members of the Japanese League have done so, including the great Sadaharu Oh of the Yomiuri Giants, who had four against Hanshin at Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo on May 3, 1964. The others were Yoshiyuki Iwamoto of the Shockiku Robins (1951), Tony Solaita of the Nippon Ham Fighters (1980) and Nigel Wilson of the Nippon Ham Fighters (1997).

Larry Stone can be reached at 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com.