Two consecutive pitches. Two inside-the-park home runs.

On August 27, 1977, the Texas Rangers turned a seventh-inning rally at Yankee Stadium into something baseball almost never sees twice in a row: two inside-the-park home runs on consecutive pitches. Toby Harrah and Bump Wills both circled the bases without clearing the fence, Ken Clay never left the mound between them, and New York lost 8–2 in front of 33,179 fans. 123

Texas already led 4–2 when the top of the seventh began. Claudell Washington grounded out. Willie Horton singled to center, and Sandy Alomar ran for him. Dave May followed with another single to center, putting runners on first and second. 14

Harrah, who entered the day with 19 home runs and 18 stolen bases that season, drove Clay's next pitch toward the right-field wall. Lou Piniella raced back, leaped into the padding, and got a glove on the ball. The ball tipped off his glove, struck the wall, and caromed toward the infield. Piniella hit the wall hard enough to fall motionless while Harrah scored a three-run inside-the-park home run. After medical attention, Piniella stayed in the game. Texas led 7–2. 14

Clay stayed on the mound for Wills, a rookie second baseman and the son of base-stealing star Maury Wills. Wills hit Clay's first pitch high and deep to center. Mickey Rivers first turned the wrong way, then recovered with a long sprint, and finally reached the ball with his back to the infield. The ball deflected off Rivers's glove toward left-center. Wills completed the circuit for a solo inside-the-park home run—his second homer of the afternoon and the fifth of a then club-record five-homer day for Texas. 14

That was the last pitch Clay threw in the inning. Gil Patterson replaced him. Bert Blyleven finished the 8–2 win for the Rangers; Mike Torrez took the loss after earlier solo shots by Mike Hargrove, Wills, and Bert Campaneris had already chased him. Bucky Dent and Graig Nettles supplied the Yankees' two runs with solo homers of the ordinary, over-the-wall kind. 12

An inside-the-park home run is rare enough on its own. Two in a row are rarer still. SABR's game reconstruction treats the Harrah–Wills pair as only the second back-to-back inside-the-park home runs in major-league history, after Marv Rickert and Eddie Waitkus did it for the Chicago Cubs against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds on June 23, 1946. Pitch-by-pitch data from 1946 does not survive, so SABR labels the 1977 sequence as possibly the first on successive pitches; the Chicago Tribune's later on-this-date note states the consecutive-pitch claim without that hedge. 13

The remodeled Yankee Stadium was only in its second season after renovation. Its center field still measured 417 feet, and no inside-the-park home run had been hit there in 1977 before this afternoon. Rivers had produced the only one at the rebuilt park in 1976. 1

The Yankees recovered to win the American League East and the 1977 World Series. The Rangers finished 94–68, their best record to that point, but still second in the West. Clay later landed in Texas by trade. Harrah finished 1977 with career highs of 27 home runs and 27 stolen bases. Wills placed third in American League Rookie of the Year voting. 1

The shareable version is simple: on August 27, 1977, two Rangers hit inside-the-park home runs on consecutive pitches at Yankee Stadium—and the second one came after the center fielder turned the wrong way.