The Popcorn Stand: Mulliniks and six degrees of separation from Porterville

On Monday I was putting together Tuesday’s edition of The Recorder and while I was looking over the Date In History column I came across an item I’m embarrassed to say as a huge baseball fan and someone who loves Porterville I didn’t know anything about:

On September 14, 1987 the Toronto Blue Jays hit a Major League-record 10 home runs in their 18-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. It’s a record that still stands today.

Of course I immediately thought did Rance Mulliniks hit one of those 10 homers in that game. At least I knew Mulliniks, a 1974 Monache graduate, was playing with the Blue Jays at the time.

Not only did Mulliniks hit one homer. He hit two. Embarrassed to say I never knew that. Never knew about another Six Degrees of Separation from Porterville in which a Porterville native played an important role in baseball history.

Mulliniks hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning to give the Blue Jays a 3-0 lead. He homered again, hitting a solo shot in the third.

You can watch all 10 homers, including the two Mulliniks hit here: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=9-i211ucqqm

That was pretty much it for Rance that night as he went 2-for-3 with the two home runs and three RBI. Mulliniks was given much of the rest of the game off as the pounding of the Orioles gave the Blue Jays a chance to rest many of their players as they were in the middle of a divisional race with the Detroit Tigers.

The Blue Jays ended up losing the American League East title to the Tigers that season. But that wasn’t the case in 1992 when the Blue Jays went on to beat the Atlanta Braves in six games to win the World Series.

And of course I’m well aware of the incredibly crucial, well-chronicled role Mulliniks played in that Series.

In game 2, the Blue Jays were on the verge of going down 2-0 in the series when they trailed the Braves 4-3 going into the ninth. Jeff Reardon came on to save the game for the Braves.

After Reardon issued a walk, Ed Sprague came to the plate as a pinch hitter. It was his first at-bat of the World Series and he had hit one home run all season.

I’ll let Ranch tell the rest: “I had faced Reardon on a number of occasions. (Sprague) came down and asked me, ‘What do you look for?’ What Reardon tries to do is get you out with the fastball. He was very adept at throwing that fastball letter-high. As a hitter, you see that very well and think you can be on top of it. You either swing through it, foul it off or fly out. I said, ‘Spraguey, if he flips you a little breaking ball early in the count, don’t let that get in your head because that’s not what he wants to get you out with. He’s going to show that to you to put that pitch in your mind. What he wants to get you out with is his fastball up in the strike zone. Stay with the fastball no matter what and think belt or down.”

The rest is history. That’s exactly what Sprague did. He hit a two-run homer to give the Blue Jays a 5-4 win. You can watch the homere here: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwrxrdyipya

Mulliniks, of course has always been a humble person, so he has never taken much credit for what Sprague did. As Mulliniks put it, “He did the hard part,” noting there are veterans who wouldn’t have been able to execute in such a pressure situation the way Sprague did.

So there you have it. Another chapter, actually another two chapters, in the Six Degrees of Separation From Porterville saga.