The Million Dollar Dinger

Back in ‘99, the Arizona Diamondbacks were pretty damn good.

In their second year of existence, they won 100 games and the city of Phoenix was super fired up about the team.

Gylene Hoyle was one of those excited fans.

A local radio station, KNIX, was running a radio contest that gave fans an entry into the “Grand Slam Sunday” promotion backed by Shamrock Farms; one fan would get picked each week.

Gylene entered and won.

As a result, she attended a game between the D-Backs and the Athletics where she would have the opportunity to predict which Arizona ballplayer would hit a grand slam that day.

She had to predict the player AND the inning that the grand slam would happen.

The odds of getting this right are less than .1%.

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That year, Jay Bell was having a career-high season - putting up a .289/.374/.557 slash line - so Gylene picked him, and said it would go down in the bottom of the sixth.

Going into the bottom of the sixth, it wasn’t looking good - Jay Bell was due up seventh in that inning.

On top of that, Jay Bell was 0-12 up to that point in the series against Oakland.

But by some divine miracle, they got Bell to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs - here’s the sequence:

Steve Finley: double

Travis Lee: groundout, runner advances

David Dellucci: double, tie ball game

Damian Miller: walk

Omar Daal: sac bunt

Tony Womack: walk

So Bell comes to the plate with two down, bases juiced, and a million dollars on the line.

A teammate had actually tipped Bell off about the promo, so going into the at-bat he felt more pressure than ever knowing that his next swing could change someone’s life.

He worked the count to 3-2 and then did THIS.

Gylene Hoyle became an instant millionaire that day, and Jay Bell says this is “by far” his favorite moment of his entire 18-year career in the big leagues.