Leaving the yard in Baltimore

On his way to winning the Triple Crown and the American League's 1966 MVP award, Frank Robinson 58 years ago today becomes the first and only player to hit a home run out of Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium.

Not just over the left-field fence and into the stands, either.

No, talking here about completely out of the yard.

Final distance: 541 feet – 451 in the air, another 90 on the roll before stopping under a car parked a city block from home plate.

The homer comes in the first inning off Cleveland’s Luis Tiant, who enters the game with three straight shutouts and leaves it with an 8-3 loss in the second game of the Orioles’ doubleheader sweep of the Indians before a Sunday Mother’s Day of 37,658 at the venerable ballpark on 33rd Street.

The homer is one of three Robinson hits off Tiant during a Hall of Fame career in which he hits 586.

The Orioles later place a flag beyond the left-field wall carrying the word “HERE” to mark where Robinson's homer exits the stadium.

Before the season ends, the Orioles win 97 games and the American League pennant by a full nine games over the second-place Minnesota Twins before sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games of the World Series.

“Sometimes you can point to one incident in a season as a big one,” Orioles pitcher Moe Drabowsky later tells writer John Eisenberg. “To me, when Frank hit that ball out of the stadium off Tiant, it galvanized the whole team. It was like, ‘We’re going to be tough to beat this year.’ ”