After a successful six-game road trip including a sweep of the Houston Astros, the St. Louis Cardinals will enjoy their fourth rest day of the season on Thursday. Thursday also marks an incredible day in MLB history and Cardinals franchise history. Now, 27 years ago in 1999, the Cardinals defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 12-5 by way of unreal heroics from Fernando Tatis Sr. The Cardinals scored 11 runs in the third inning to take a commanding lead as Tatis clubbed two grand slams throughout the frame.
This marked the first time that a player had ever hit two grand slams in the same inning. Including Tatis, only 13 major leaguers have ever hit two grand slams in the same game, let alone the same inning. Of those 13, only three (including Tatis) played on National League teams. The most recent player to accomplish the feat was Josh Willingham in 2009. Willingham did his damage one inning apart, going deep in the fifth and sixth frames.
Back to Tatis, he finished the day against the Dodgers having gone 2-for-5 with eight RBIs and two strikeouts. Both of his grand slams came off of South Korean right-hander Chan Ho Park, who finished the game with 11 runs allowed over 2 2/3 innings, although only six of them were earned runs due to three Dodgers errors.
Tatis' career-best 1999 season
Tatis was just 24 years old at the time. Only 15 games into the 1999 season, Tatis would go on to have his strongest season as a major leaguer, posting career highs in WAR, batting average, hits, home runs, RBIs and stolen bases. His final tallies for the year were 3.0 WAR, a .298 batting average, 160 hits, 34 home runs, 107 RBIs and 21 stolen bases.
Tatis would post one more solid season with the Redbirds in 2000 before bouncing around to the Montreal Expos, Baltimore Orioles and New York Mets before his MLB career ended following the 2010 season. Tatis retired in 2014 following his final season in Mexico as a player in the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol (LMB). Not even five years later, his son, Fernando Tatis Jr., debuted for the San Diego Padres in 2019 and quickly became one of the league's brightest young stars.
