San Francisco Giants Legend Completed Extremely Rare Hitting Feat 64 Years Ago Today

The San Francisco Giants have one of only 19 players in MLB history to complete one of the most difficult single-game hitting tasks in the sport.

Willie Mays speaks after being inducted into the Cactus League Hall of Fame, February 22, 2017, during the Cactus League Luncheon at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort. 5001 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale. | Mark Henle / USA TODAY NETWORK

The San Francisco Giants are off to a hot start in 2025, something that has been exciting to watch after multiple years of not-so-impressive play.

With how storied this franchise is, and how many legendary players they have had, any time they find themselves in a rut, it becomes more unbearable each season it stretches on.

This is something that occurs with all the highly-valued franchises around the sporting world, but especially those with huge community backings like the Giants.

One of the things that transcends all of the teams across history is really impressive feats of talent, whether it be amazing catches, single-game performances or even a full campaign that blows fans away.

These types of things bring the community together to admire how impressive it is, and one of those is the extremely difficult four-home run game, which has only been completed by 19 players in the history of Major League Baseball.

Recently, the first occurrence of this feat since 2017 happened when Eugenio Suárez of the Arizona Diamondbacks hit four home runs in a loss on April 26.

Going further back, the ninth time a four-homer game happened in the MLB was today on April 30, albeit in a contest that occurred 64 years prior.

This was accomplished by legend Willie Mays in a 14-4 throttling of the then-Milwaukee Braves.

In this contest, Mays batted third in the order, and in five at-bats, all four of his hits left the park, racking up eight RBI with no strikeouts.

Even more intriguing, he was not the only player on the team with a multi-home run game that day, as shortstop José Pagán also hit two.

Overall, the Giants had eight homers in this matchup and 11 total extra-base hits.

Billy Loes pitched a complete game for San Francisco, accruing only three strikeouts and one walk across all nine innings.

The only other time a player hit four home runs that early in the season was in 1976, the next one that followed Mays when Mike Schmidt of the Philadelphia Phillies did so on April 17.

Otherwise, in most cases, it has happened during the summer or later in the year.

Making small connections back to the all-time greats is a good way to look back at the past, and with the MLB recently putting out the full list of 19 occurrences, it gives fans an opportunity to celebrate the anniversary of such events.