Where no ball has gone before

Pittsburgh’s Willie Stargell hits a baseball harder and farther than any player ever at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium with a prodigious home run 53 years ago today off Phillies right-hander Jim Bunning.

Stargell’s homer comes in the top of the second inning, a drive into Section 601 of the upper deck in the then-new stadium.

“It was a high slider that I used to get Stargell out on, only I didn’t throw it hard enough and didn’t get it in,” Bunning later tells Larry Shenk, the Phillies’ longtime vice president of public relations and keeping of all things Phillies lore.

“It got over the fat part of the plate,” Bunning says. “He couldn’t hit it any farther.”

The homer gives the Pirates a 7-2 lead in a game they eventually win 14-4 before a Friday night crowd of 38,736 in South Philly.

The homer also is the 223rd – three coming off Bunning – of the 475 that Stargell hits during his Hall of Fame career.

Stargell’s drive remains the longest hit at the Vet by the time the stadium closes after the 2003 season.

“When he swung, you didn’t take your eyes off it because you wanted to see where it was going,” Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa tells Shenk.

“It was majestic,” Bowa says. “I couldn’t believe how far that ball went. It would take me three swings to get one up there – from second base.”