One in a million
Bob Watson scoring Major League Baseball’s one millionth run
Houston’s Bob Watson sprints from third to home on a three-run homer by Milt May at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park and scores the one millionth run in the history of the major leagues 49 years ago today.
May’s homer comes off Giants starter John Montefusco in the second inning of what turns out to be an 8-6 victory for San Francisco in the first game of a doubleheader before a smallish Sunday afternoon crowd of 9,451 at Candlestick.
All of that is secondary to Watson’s run for the record book, which starts when he leads off the second inning with a walk.
Watson then steals second before Montefusco walks Jose Cruz and May follows with his home run to deep right field.
As he reaches third – with run No. 999,999 waiting to turn to a milestone million and players scoreboard watching to keep tabs of the total – Watson hears his teammates from the Astros bullpen yelling at him to pick up the pace.
Watson then goes into a full sprint to the plate.
Good move, too, as Watson reaches home mere seconds before Dave Concepcion crosses the plate after hitting a solo homer off Phil Niekro in the fifth inning of the Cincinnati Reds’ 3-2 victory over Atlanta at Riverfront Stadium.
As for Watson, he earns a $10,000 cash prize and one million pieces of candy from Tootsie Roll – a sponsor of the event – as well as a $1,000 watch from Seiko, another sponsor.
As for the Astros, they win the second game of the doubleheader 12-8 with Watson sitting out.
Just as well since the Hall of Fame takes his cleats after the first game, leaving Watson to break in a new pair before next taking the field.
And, as for all that candy, turns out that Watson’s kids are allergic to chocolate, so he donates half of the chewy treats to the Girl Scouts of America with the other half going to the Boy Scouts.
“My fan mail was something like four or five letters a week,” Watson later tells MLB.com. “Scoring the millionth run, it increased to 50 to 100 per week. It got me on the map a little bit, and I ended up being the answer to a trivia question.”