05/22/2026
Sometimes, the most dangerous hitter in the lineup NEVER gets to swing.
On May 22, 1962, Roger Maris set a Major League record by drawing four intentional walks (among five walks total) for the New York Yankees in an extra-innings win over the Angels. Reportedly after the game Maris called teammate Mickey Mantle, who was at the hospital recuperating from injury, and jokingly told him to hurry back to work, since he was sick of getting Mantle’s intentional passes.
The strategy spoke volumes: just one season removed from his record-setting 61-home run campaign, opposing pitchers decided that pitching to Maris was an inferior option than simply putting him on first base.
Twenty-eight years later to the day, Andre Dawson raised the bar even higher. Playing for the Chicago Cubs on May 22, 1990, Dawson received five intentional walks, still the MLB record for the most intentional passes ever issued to one player in a single game. The strategy worked for the first four such walks, as the next man up made the third out of the inning each time. After Dawson’s fifth pass in the 16th inning, Dave Clark came through with the game-winning hit for the Cubs.
With intentional walks easier to issue than ever before, will anyone ever match the Hawk’s IBB mark? Do we even want them to?
