The crack of the century 
Forget the three-hour snoozefests. The real heart of MLB can come down to a split second. That suspended, brutal instant when the ash bat meets the ball at full speed. One perfectly timed swing can launch a ball into the clouds, flip a stadium of 50,000 on its head and wreck the bankroll of the most confident punters. A regular-season MLB home run is nice.
Etching it into history when the pressure is suffocating? That is the territory of the truly great. So let us go back through the archives and dig out the five ballistic blasts that have scarred generations of MLB pitchers.
Jose Bautista (2015) – Pure swagger
We kick off with the modern MLB era. Seventh inning of a total chaos do-or-die clash between Toronto and Texas. The mood in the stands is so toxic you could cut it with a knife. The Dominican slugger spots the opening and launches a full-blooded missile into the left-field seats. But it is not the power that breaks the internet, it is the celebration. Bautista flips the bat with complete contempt for the opposing pitcher. That infamous bat flip, dripping with disrespect, set off the purists, thrilled the new generation and helped spark some proper scraps afterwards. A glorious slap in the face to the old guard.
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Bobby Thomson (1951) – The heist of the century
This rocket is known as the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World”. Wind the clock back, we are in the middle of the Cold War. The New York Giants are facing their bitter rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, for the National League title. Ninth inning, season hanging by a thread. Thomson steps in and launches a desperate offering into the lower stands. The radio voices of the day are screaming blue murder, the crowd literally pours onto the grass. That late, crushing blow remains the very definition of a sports miracle in MLB. The sort of Hollywood ending that would bankrupt any bookmaker today.
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Joe Carter (1993) – Touch ’em all, Joe!
Finish a World Series with a title-winning home run? That is the dream every kid with a glove in the garden has while imagining the MLB. Carter turned that fantasy into reality on the biggest stage. The Blue Jays are trailing deep in the ninth inning of Game 6. The tension is crushing. Against Mitch Williams, a feared late-innings specialist, the Canadian hitter does not blink once and sends the ball over the fence. His wild leap around the bases, screaming in joy, is burned into the retinas of millions of MLB fans. A straight-up home robbery.
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Bill Mazeroski (1960) – The dagger to the Yankees
Take a moment to absorb the context: Game 7 of the World Series, the final showdown, sudden death at its finest. Against the untouchable Bronx Bombers, the modest Pittsburgh Pirates hang on with their teeth. We get to the bottom of the ninth, tied on the board. Mazeroski, who was hardly known as a fearsome slugger, clears the fence with a towering blast to left field. It is the only time in MLB’s 100-plus-year history that a title has ended on a walk-off home run in a deciding Game 7. The odds on that kind of finish at the first pitch must have been stratospheric.
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Kirk Gibson (1988) – The limping miracle
It feels like a science-fiction script. Game 1 of the MLB World Series against Oakland’s brutal machine. The Los Angeles Dodgers are behind and have only a handful of seconds left. Kirk Gibson, the local superstar, is in agony. Both legs are wrecked by injury, and the guy can barely stand in the dugout.
Called off the bench as a pinch hitter to widespread disbelief, he faces Dennis Eckersley, the deadliest reliever in the land. On one good leg, face twisted in pain, Gibson finds the mystic force to drive the ball into the right-field seats. His slow lap around the bases, pumping his fist furiously, still gives people chills decades later.
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