Bryce Harper joined an exclusive club with his broken-bat homer
Broken bats usually aren't very fun for the hitter. The quality of contact is generally poor and the shattering of wood, especially on a cold day, can leave your hands feeling numb. Plus, you have to lose a bat in the process! They're loyal friends for a hitter, and it hurts to lose them.
On very rare occasions, however, the bats choose to go out in a blaze of glory with the best outcome possible for its former owner -- a homer. Bryce Harper turned this trick on Monday night against the Mets:
It's a testament to Harper's pure strength that he managed to muscle that ball out, but broken-bat homers have been hit before. The first to popularize it in the modern era was a relatively obscure Angels outfielder named Jack Howell on Sept. 5, 1987, at the old Yankee Stadium. Even the incomparable Vin Scully was stunned.
Another broken-bat blast at Yankee Stadium came off the bat of Glenallen Hill, who was no stranger to home run heroics:
Barry Bonds' inclusion in this "Modern Splendid Splinters Club" shouldn't surprise anyone. The man hit 762 homers -- it's a safe bet that one of them would be weird:
On the other hand, catcher George Kottaras only clubbed 32 dingers during his seven-year career. But while he was a member of the Brewers in 2010, he put his name alongside Bonds and company:
The old Yankee Stadium was gone by the time Mark Teixeira became a Yankee, so he made sure to christen the new Yankee Stadium with a broken-bat homer:
Justin Upton made his own entrance into the club during his D-backs days. Only the handle remained in his hands, but the ball ended up over the left-center-field fence:
Chris Davis didn't have much of a bat left either when he launched a broken-bat blast at Camden Yards in 2012:
Nelson Cruz joined the party in 2016, when his "Boomstick" suffered an unfortunate fate, but for a noble cause:
When Mark Reynolds was with the Rockies in 2017, he took a page from Upton's book by crushing a broken-bat homer in almost exactly the same spot at Chase Field:
That's what happens when you have all the breaks go your way.
