The ball launched into the San Francisco sky, bypassing any seat or structure on its flight, and landed somewhere unique to most major sports.
Kerplunk.
San Francisco Giants’ LaMonte Wade, Jr. recorded the 100th “splash hit” home run in Oracle Park history Friday night, sending the first pitch he saw from Orioles pitcher Dean Kremer in the bottom of the first inning into McCovey Cove for a bath in the San Francisco Bay. The drenched drive gave the Giants an early 1-0 lead, but the Orioles recovered and went on to win 3-2.
Before the majors, the Baltimore native played baseball in College Park, Maryland, for the Terps between 2013 and 2015. Now in the Bay Area, Wade Jr. has connected for a splash hit five times since 2021.
The Giants don’t officially count soaked home runs from visiting players as splash hits, but 45 visiting players have recorded an unofficial splash hit 61 times. Unofficially, Wade Jr. recorded splash hit number 161 in the park’s 23-year history.
Eleven Terps have been in the majors since Oracle Park opened in San Francisco, then as Pacific Bell Park, in 2000. Only four of them have been position players with a shot to reach McCovey Cove: the other seven have been pitchers. Wade, Jr. is the only Terp to have any splash hits, officially as a Giant or unofficially as a visiting player, and no former Terps pitcher has ever given up a splash hit.
Barry Bonds leads all major leaguers past and present with 35 splash hits from 2000 until 2007, averaging 6.5 splash hits the first four years the ballpark was open, including nine in 2001.
Only one National has reached the Bay.
Bryce Harper took Hunter Strickland deep into the cove on Oct. 7, 2014 — part of the brewing animosity that culminated in a benches-clearing brawl between the Nationals and Giants on Memorial Day 2017.
No Orioles have hit the Bay, but they have another chance this weekend as they take on the Giant Sunday at 4:05 p.m.
