It took George Crowe 11 swings to set a major league record.
In 1960, Crowe was sent to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game as the Milwaukee Braves were visiting St. Louis on May 25.
Nearing the end of his career, the 39-year old swatted a two-run pinch-hit homer as the Cardinals beat the Braves 5-3.
The blast off Milwaukee’s Don McMahon was Crowe’s only walk-off homer of 81 long balls in his career.
Crowe also broke a tie with Smoky Burgess and Gus Zernial, who each had 10 pinch-hit homers at the time when the Indiana native hit his 11th.
In a Milwaukee Journal article by Bob Wolf on May 26, Crowe discussed his improvement in pinch-hitting situations.
“I’m more used to it now,” he said. “That helps, but you’ve got to go up swinging and you’ve got to be a little lucky.”
On June 26, Burgess tied the mark with his 11th pinch-hit homer, but Crowe would finish the 1960 season with 14.
Burgess would end his career with 16 pinch-hit homers with the last coming in 1967.
No Longer in Book
The names of Crowe, Burgess and Zernial are no longer in the record book, as they have been passed several times.
Matt Stairs, who played for eight teams in his career from 1992-2011, hit 23 with seven of them for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 and 2009.
The other two names in the book are Jerry Lynch and Gates Brown.
From 1954-1966, Lynch set the National League mark of 18 with the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates.
Brown has the American League standard of 16 as he played with the Detroit Tigers from 1963-1975.
Trailblazer
Crowe spent nine seasons in the big leagues starting with the Boston Braves in 1952. He played in Milwaukee in 1953 and 1955 before getting traded to the Reds at the beginning of the 1956 season.
In 1957, he had his best year as he played first base for the Reds in place of an injured Ted Kluszewski. Crowe hit 31 homers and drove in 92 runs with a .272 batting average.
An all-star in 1958, Crowe finished his career with the Cardinals from 1959-1961.
A contemporary of Jackie Robinson, Crowe was quite a trailblazer himself as he graduated from Indiana Central (University of Indianapolis) in 1943.
In 1976, Crowe was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.
Crowe graduated from Franklin High School, which is south of Indianapolis.
According to his hall of fame bio page, Crowe played professional basketball for seven seasons. One of the teams included Robinson.
Franklin was the runner-up to the state title in 1939 when Crowe was a senior. He was named Indiana’s very first Mr. Basketball.
Family Success
Ironically, Crowe’s older brother would later coach two Mr. Basketballs in the 1950s.
Winning state championships in 1955-1956, Oscar Robertson played for Ray Crowe at Crispus Attucks in Indianapolis earning the Mr. Basketball honor in 1956.
Robertson went on to a legendary college, professional and Olympic career.
Hallie Bryant was Crowe’s other Mr. Basketball in 1953. Also a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, he helped Indiana University win a Big 10 title and later played for the Harlem Globetrotters.