Frank Robinson Hits Two Grand Slams in One Game

On June 26, 1970, Frank Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles hit two grand slams in the same game against the Washington Senators at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium. The Orioles won 12-2, and Robinson drove in eight of those runs with two swings of the bat.

The first grand slam came in the fifth inning off Senators starter Joe Coleman. Robinson launched a 390-foot drive to the base of the scoreboard in right field, clearing the bases and breaking the game open. In the sixth inning, with reliever Joe Grzenda now on the mound, Robinson came up with the bases loaded again and hammered a 462-foot blast into the upper deck in left-center field.

The most remarkable detail was the baserunners. Both times Robinson stepped to the plate with the bases full, the same three teammates occupied the same three bases. Dave McNally stood on third. Don Buford was on second. Paul Blair was on first. The coincidence gave the night a sense of scripted theater, though nothing about Robinson's career was scripted, and the two swings were simply what happened when pitchers challenged him with the bases full.

Robinson became the seventh player in major league history to hit two grand slams in one game. He had arrived at the ballpark sore from the night before, when he had crashed into the right field wall while robbing Reggie Smith of a home run in the 13th inning. The collision cracked a rib, but Robinson played through it and delivered one of the most destructive offensive performances of the 1970 season.

Robinson was 34 years old and in the middle of the greatest stretch of team baseball the Orioles ever played. Baltimore won 108 games in 1970 and beat the Cincinnati Reds in five games in the World Series, with Brooks Robinson taking Series MVP honors. Frank Robinson had won the award four years earlier, when he also captured the American League Triple Crown and regular-season MVP in his first year with Baltimore. He and Shohei Ohtani are the only players to win MVP honors in both leagues.

The two grand slams in one game were never replicated by Robinson. He hit 586 career home runs and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1982.