The rarest events in baseball (an open thread)

Jan 27, 2023 - 3:13 PM

I recently saw a tweet about the rarity of certain baseball events that I thought you all might find interesting. The events in question are things like losing a perfect on the 27th batter, just pitching a perfect game, or even hitting a homer in your first career pitch. Now I will give you some time to think about what you think might be the rarest thing to happen. You know the answer.

Okay, have you given it some thought?

Did you think it was a player hitting two grand slams in one inning? If you did, you have figured out the event that has only happened one time in baseball history — not to mention that the one time it happened, the grand slams were off the same person.

Of course we cannot mention Fernando Tatis hitting two grand slams in the same inning without including the video. That would just be wrong.

Some Cardinals have accomplished some other things that are in this list, so we might as well look at those too, right?
Rogers Hornsby was caught stealing three times in a nine-inning game on June 12, 1922
Vince Coleman hit three sac flies in a game on May 1, 1986
On September 7, 1993 Mark Whiten hit four homers in one game

Adam Wainwright hit a home run on the first big league pitch he saw on May 24, 2006

The Cardinals have had three pitchers throw an immaculate inning:
Bob Gibson (obviously) on May 12, 1969
Jason Isringhausen on April 13, 2002

And Ryan Helsey threw one just last season on September 16, 2022

The list of players hitting a homer in their first career at bat is even longer. National League St. Louis players that have done it include:
Eddie Morgan on April 14, 1936
Wally Moon on April 13, 1954

Keith McDonald on July 4, 2000
Chris Richard on July 17, 2000
Gene Stechschulte on April 17, 2001
Adam Wainwright
Paul DeJong on May 28, 2017

Lane Thomas on April 19, 2019

The Nationals League St. Louis team has had ten games where the starting pitcher threw a no hitter. Those pitchers were:
Ted Breitenstein
Jesse Haines
Paul Dean
Lon Warneke
Ray Washburn
Bob Gibson
Bob Forsch (this time and this time)
José Jiménez
Bud Smith

There have been 17 Cardinals to hit for the cycle, most recently Nolan Arenado in 2022:

That’s all I could find, but feel free to drop in any I missed or any other rare occurrences you might think of!