Today in Philly Sports History: Bobby Abreu Homers 41 Times in One Derby, 2005

Who knows what baseballs did to make Bobby Abreu so angry before the Home Run Derby on July 11th, 2005, but his revenge was swift and merciless. Amidst an international roster of superstars (and also Hee Seop Choi) at Comerica Park, Bobby did all of Venezuela proud by homering an astounding 41 times, including 24 times in the first round--both easily besting Miguel Tejada's previous records of 27 and 15, respectively. Abreu's longest blast went 517 feet, measured as the third longest in Derby history. Abreu, who would also start the All-Star Game for the first time the following night hitting leadoff, couldn't believe it. "This is something amazing," said Abreu. "I don't know if I can sleep tonight." (Johan Santana's father allegedly told him over the phone that Venezuela was "paralyzed" by Abreu's performance).

Unfortunately, what should be one of the prouder moments in recent Phillies history has since been somewhat diluted by a variety of factors. First, Abreu was traded to the Yankees barely a full season later for a bunch of nobodies, in an exchange referred to by Bill Conlin as "The Great Gillick Giveaway," and of course, the Phils quickly went on to greatness without him. Second, Abreu's power numbers dropped significantly after the Derby--he had 18 dingers before the All-Star Break that year, including nine over a ten-game period, but only went deep six times the entire rest of the season, and would later claim that his performance at the Derby was a contributing factor ("It messed up my swing a little bit because it was like playing golf, when I usually swing on the line," he told USA Today). Third, Abreu's achievements were largely upstaged recently by Josh Hamilton's 28-homer first round at the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium, whose redemptive performance set the baseball world on fire and caused Rick Reilly to exclaim that it was "a bad day to be an atheist."

However, it should be noted that Abreu's record of 44 homers for the entire derby remain a record. Perhaps more importantly, unlike Hamilton, Abreu actually, y'know, won the thing.

Comments

[Bill]

You should make a "Today in Philly Sports History" pull away calender and a coffee table book with photos. It would then become my lifelong goal to get each page autographed by the phillie player on the page; a tough feat for the stories about the deceased but I'm cool with forgery.

[hitnrun]

I remember Abreu's successive performance becoming another cautionary tale about the Derby "ruining" a player's swing.

Doesn't quite add up to me. These are people who hit baseballs for a living. It's not like they see 95 mph fastballs or 12-6 curves in batting practice every day.

[RickW]

At least half of those should have counted towards his end-of-year statistics.

[phillyfan412]

Fuck Bobby Abreu.