MLB Home Teams Make History By Going 15-0

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Finally this hour, a little bit of baseball history.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: McFarland deals down the line.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Fair ball.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Oh, it's fair ball.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Game over. Mariners win it 6 to 5. Austin Jackson with a game-winner.

SIEGEL: Late last night, the Seattle Mariners beat the Baltimore Orioles at home in the final at-bat.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

OK, you're saying to yourself that sounds exciting for Mariners fans, but why do I care about an inconsequential game between two baseball teams having mediocre seasons? Good question. Well, that win marked the first time in baseball history that all 15 home teams won on the same day.

SIEGEL: Now, legions of baseball historians and hard-core fans absolutely live for the game's random stats and bits of historical trivia.

BLOCK: And it's rare that a first-time ever event happens without someone knowing ahead of time.

SIEGEL: But Jacob Pomrenke, web editor for the Society for American Baseball Research, says almost nobody realized a 15-for-15 home team sweep had never happened before until it happened yesterday.

JACOB POMRENKE: They hadn't even been thinking about it. You know, this was something that just kind of wow, you know? I would've assumed that this would've happened, you know, a long time ago. And this would've been the third or the fifth time that this had happened.

BLOCK: Pomrenke says days like yesterday are why fans like him love the game.

POMRENKE: When you go to again you never know what you're going to see. And you can go to a game on a Tuesday night in August and see something that's never been done in, you know, nearly 150 years in baseball history.

SIEGEL: And if you're hoping that maybe this will happen again soon, you should know the likelihood is just one in nearly 33,000.

BLOCK: And that's more inconsequential baseball than even the biggest fan should ever have to live through. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.