Reggie Jackson's All-Star Game homer off the Tiger Stadium roof is still jaw-dropping
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There's no way to say for sure whether Reggie Jackson's homer at the 1971 All-Star Game is the longest in the history of the Midsummer Classic -- the game is over 80 years old, after all, and data is incomplete.
Here's what we do know, though: 46 years to the day after Jackson's blast, it remains the only baseball in All-Star Game history to nearly turn out the lights.
Sure, Tiger Stadium was a famously hitter-friendly ballpark, especially for lefties. The right-field fence sat just 325 feet from home plate, and Jackson wasn't the only man to leave the stadium entirely.
But Mr. October's blast -- off then-Pirates ace Dock Ellis, no less -- was gargantuan by any measure: According to Home Run Tracker's estimate, the ball traveled 532 feet ... or at least it would have, had the base of the light tower on the right-field roof not gotten in its way. Ernie Harwell and Al Kaline both dubbed it the hardest-hit ball they'd ever seen, and even Jackson himself agreed: "I think this would have to be the longest one I've ever hit," he said afterward.
Even better, the homer cut the AL's deficit from 3-0 to 3-2, and helped the Junior Circuit earn a 6-4 win -- snapping the NL's eight-game winning streak in the Midsummer Classic.