One Of Us: Minnesota Native Hits Three Home Runs on the Fourth of July for the Cubs

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Love this report - Home State Pride!  Now if only Wallner could join the group.  

I had to check on Roger Maris - he had 4 2HR games in his 61 season, but no 3 HRs.

Winfield, Hrbek, Maris and Molitor have the most HRs total for Minnesotans according to BR.  Did Hrbek ever have a 3 HR game?  I don't remember.  In fact that raises another question that would be a good follow up - have any Twins had 3 HR games?   Harmon Killebrew - 1963, Tony Oliva - 1973 and Nelson Cruz in 2019 are the only ones I could find. 

And traded trivia - David Ortiz never had a 3 HR game but Aaron Hicks did!

Busch is just the sixth player born and raised in Minnesota to hit three homers in a game. I'm 99.9% confident there wasn't one by the handful of players born elsewhere but who grew up in Minnesota. There was, however, a three-homer game by Ike Davis, who was born in Minnesota but didn't live here for long. (The Twins had actually already traded his dad away the year before he was born, but I guess it's not so easy to just up and move your family right away.) 

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Love this report - Home State Pride!  Now if only Wallner could join the group.  

I had to check on Roger Maris - he had 4 2HR games in his 61 season, but no 3 HRs.

Winfield, Hrbek, Maris and Molitor have the most HRs total for Minnesotans according to BR.  Did Hrbek ever have a 3 HR game?  I don't remember.  In fact that raises another question that would be a good follow up - have any Twins had 3 HR games?   Harmon Killebrew - 1963, Tony Oliva - 1973 and Nelson Cruz in 2019 are the only ones I could find. 

And traded trivia - David Ortiz never had a 3 HR game but Aaron Hicks did!

Here are all the three-HR games in Twins history via Baseball Reference: https://stathead.com/tiny/wtpsY

Interesting to note that in the Twins' first 55 seasons, there were just four 3-HR games, and then suddenly there were nine such performances in the six-year period from 2016 to 2021. 

48 minutes ago, 1985Fan said:

Great MN baseball history! It would be nice to have more details on these 3 HR games, like notable pitchers the HR were hit off of, what the score of the game was, etc.. Molitor’s 3HR game was in ‘82, which was the Brewers last trip to the WS, so should be interesting to see who it was against, what the score was. Thanks for the MN baseball info. There were and are some great MN natives that played the game. 

Yeah, I'll have to write that post. Just did a quickie on this Busch accomplishment last night, and honestly at first I could only think of Westrum and Winfield (because I knew they were 15-total base games). The Dan Johnson one is interesting in that they were his only home runs of the season.

Here's the list on Baseball Reference. (Of course Ike Davis wasn't raised here): https://stathead.com/tiny/g1aU7

2 minutes ago, dxpavelka said:

I must be getting old cuz I had to Google who Ike Davis' dad was.  Sorry I did that.

That one is kind of sneaky. Ike was born in Edina in March 1987. Interesting to think of Ron Davis's family still living in Minnesota in 1987! 

2 hours ago, Linus said:

I would have bets lots that Hrbek had a three homer game. 

He didn't have a three-home run game, but he did have a three-grand slam season, which was tied for the Twins record until Royce Lewis hit four.