Earlier this spring, in a slugfest with Florida A&M, Jackson State University’s Tyree Reed recorded a somewhat rare feat collecting three home runs in a game, albeit in a losing effort.
Hard to recall any HBCU games in recent times in which one ballplayer has connected on three home runs.
However, it does bring to mind a game in which Grambling College (now known as Grambling State University) freshman Tommie Agee accounted for four.
The date was March 14, 1961 and Grambling had opened up its season the day before with a 25-1 victory versus Philander Smith College (now known as Philander Smith University). In that game, Agee introduced himself to the Panthers of Philander Smith with his first collegiate homer.
Collie Nicholson, Grambling’s legendary sports information director, penned the results of Agee’s second game this way…
“Tommie Agee unfurled four home runs Tuesday as Grambling College blasted Philander Smith 24-2, with a sizzling 21-hit attack. Agee, a sensational 210-pound freshman outfielder, drove in nine runs with his fifth four-master in two days.”
According to Nicholson, Agee rattled two 385-foot drives over the centerfield wall and “added to the mounting frustrations of the Panther chuckers by turning his trip-hammer assault to right field”.
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), which Grambling was a member of at that time, began accumulating and recording statistics in 1960. Though Tommie Agee’s feet was well-documented in newspapers, his four home run game was never acknowledged in the association’s record book. Nonetheless, four home runs in a single game remained a record that eventually was shared with fourteen others through the years until James Ford of Spalding University collected five home runs on May 9, 2003. That feat was duplicated by David Bergin of Tennessee Wesleyan University in 2011.
Tommie Agee earned All-American honors that year while leading the Tigers to an NAIA World Series appearance, then signed a professional baseball contract at the end of the 1961 college season. In 1966, Agee was named the American League Rookie of the Year. Over his twelve-year Major League career, Agee connected on 130 home runs. He was never able to duplicate that four home run performance in the Majors… never having more than two in any one game, which he did five times. However, he did have a record blast of 505’ at old Shea Stadium that warranted a plaque which remained there until the stadium was demolished in early 2009.