The 1990 Home Run Derby Was Epicly Bad…

If you look solely at the eight participants from the 1990 Home Run Derby, you’d probably think the event was legendary. All eight sluggers made multiple MLB All-Star appearances (60-plus combined), two are currently Hall of Famers, and several others should be in the hall but, well, that whole steroid thing happened. Yadda, yadda, moving on.

At the time it was a star-studded, and almost 30 years later, it’s still an awfully impressive list of baseball players. Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr. headlined the four-man American League team while Ryne Sandberg, hitting in his own park (Wrigley Field), and Darryl Strawberry did the same for the National League. But what should have been a show was a massive dud; five of the eight players didn’t even hit a home run…in an event designed to showcase home runs. Overall, the eight all-stars hit just FIVE homers total. How crazy is that? Look at the results below.

  1. Ryne Sandberg, 3
  2. Mark McGwire, 1
  3. Matt Williams, 1
  4. Ken Griffey Jr., 0
  5. Jose Canseco, 0
  6. Bobby Bonilla, 0
  7. Cecil Fielder, 0
  8. Darryl Strawberry, 0

Sandberg, redeemably, won the entire thing in his home ballpark with his three homers. Since, only Todd Frazier (2015) and Bryce Harper (2018) have won the derby in their home stadium.

According to an article by CBS in 2014, the lack of home runs was “because of the wind” at Wrigley Field.

Fittingly, most of the footage from the 1990 MLB Home Run Derby is wiped from the internet. A simple YouTube search pulls up one single swing from Ryne Sandberg’s round. It’s not much, but then again, the league probably wants it that way.