Daryl Dean Spencer (July 13, 1928 – January 2, 2017) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who ...

and infielder who played

shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists wh ...

, second base and

third base A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

between and for the New York / San Francisco Giants,

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

and Cincinnati Reds. He played for the

Hankyu Braves The are a Nippon Professional Baseball team formed as a result of the 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball realignment by the merger of the Orix BlueWave of Kobe, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, and the Osaka Kintetsu Buffaloes of Osaka, Osaka Prefectur ...

Nippon Professional Baseball or NPB is the highest level of baseball in Japan. Locally, it is often called , meaning ''Professional Baseball''. Outside Japan, it is often just referred to as "Japanese baseball". The roots of the league can be traced back to the formation ...

between and . On April 15, 1958, he hit the first

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

in San Francisco Giants' history in an 8–0 victory over the Dodgers. He threw and batted right-handed and was listed as tall and . Spencer was a native and longtime resident of

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had a population of 647,610 in 2020. It is located in ...

, graduating from East High School and attending

Wichita State University Wichita State University (WSU) is a public research university in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is governed by the Kansas Board of Regents. The university offers more than 60 undergraduate degree programs in more than 200 areas of study in ...

. He signed with the Giants in 1949 and, in his first full MLB season, , he started a combined 108 games at three infield positions, hitting 20 home runs, a career high. But he batted only .208, then spent 1954 and 1955 in military service. Spencer's peak years came between 1956 and 1960 as the Giants' regular shortstop (1956–1958) and second baseman (1959), then as the Cardinals' starting shortstop in 1960. He averaged 148 games played over those five years, with 70 total home runs. His Opening Day 1958 homer, hit at San Francisco's

Seals Stadium Seals Stadium was a minor league baseball stadium on the west coast of the United States, located in San Francisco, California; it later became the first home of the major league San Francisco Giants. Opened in the Mission District in 1931, Se ...

against the Dodgers' Don Drysdale, a future Baseball Hall of Famer, came in the fourth inning; the solo shot made the score 3–0 at the time. The contest was the first-ever in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

for the Giants and Dodgers after each team had moved from

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

during the offseason. Spencer led

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

shortstops in errors committed in 1957 and 1958. He reverted to a

utility As a topic of economics, utility is used to model worth or value. Its usage has evolved significantly over time. The term was introduced initially as a measure of pleasure or happiness as part of the theory of utilitarianism by moral philosoph ...

role during his final three MLB seasons. Over all or parts of ten big league seasons, Spencer appeared in 1,098 games. His 901 hits included 145 doubles, 20 triples and 105 homers. He was credited with 428

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the ba ...

and batted .244 lifetime. He then played for the

in the

Pacific League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship competes against the winner in the Central League for the annual Japan Series. It currently cons ...

in Japan between 1964 and 1972, hitting an additional 152 home runs. He also was credited with inventing the concept of

hitting for the cycle In baseball, hitting for the cycle is the accomplishment of one batter who hits a single, a double, a triple, and a home run in the same game. Collecting the hits in that order is known as a "natural cycle". Cycles are rare in Major League ...

in NPB. As the story goes, on July 16, 1965, he finished the cycle with a triple against the

Kintetsu Buffaloes The were a Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) team based in Osaka, Japan, which was in the Pacific League. In 2005 the team was merged with the Orix BlueWave to become the team now known as the Orix Buffaloes. The team played in Fujiidera Stadiu ...

, and absolutely celebrated it. Japanese media was confused about it, so they asked Spencer why he had celebrated on that triple. His response was simply that he questioned that they did not have it there, and stated that in MLB, hitting for the cycle was a major achievement. After NPB dug through records, it was discovered that hitting for the cycle happened 23 times before, so NPB made and gave awards to the players who managed to hit for the cycle. He was also on the road to winning an offensive Triple Crown that season, but in 5 games, he was intentionally walked on all his plate appearances, to the point that supposedly, he held his bat the other way around in one at bat in protest, wanting the pitcher to strike him out. This incident would be similar to the

Sadaharu Oh Sadaharu Oh (Japanese: , ''Ō Sadaharu''; born May 20, 1940), also known as Wang Chen-chih (), is a Japanese-born former baseball player and manager Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"Ō Sadaharu"in ''Japan Encyclopedia'', p. 758. who ...

single season home run incident many years later, with foreigners

Randy Bass Randy William Bass (born March 13, 1954) is an American politician and former baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) and Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), and served in the Oklahoma Senate. Bass made his MLB debut in 1977, a ...

Tuffy Rhodes Karl Derrick "Tuffy" Rhodes (born August 21, 1968) is a retired American professional baseball player. He played six years in Major League Baseball in the US, and thirteen years in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) in Japan. Rhodes is the all-ti ...

, and

Alex Cabrera Alexander Alberto Cabrera (born December 24, 1971) is a Venezuelan first baseman and right-handed batter who played in 2000 for the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball and for 12 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball. Also played sev ...

, where they would get intentionally walked to prevent them from breaking Oh's single season home run record of 55. His pro baseball career included 20 seasons spanning 24 years. He was inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971. Spencer died on January 2, 2017, at the age of 88.

References

External links

1928 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American military personnel American expatriate baseball players in Japan Baseball players from Wichita, Kansas Cincinnati Reds players Hankyu Braves players Los Angeles Dodgers players Major League Baseball second basemen Major League Baseball shortstops Major League Baseball third basemen Minneapolis Millers (baseball) players Nashville Vols players New York Giants (NL) players Pauls Valley Raiders players St. Louis Cardinals players San Francisco Giants players Sioux City Soos players Wichita State Shockers baseball players {{US-baseball-shortstop-stub