Four for the Rock

In all baseball history, only two men had ever hit four consecutive home runs in one game. * But one night last week, in Baltimore's vast Memorial Stadium, Cleveland Outfielder Rocco Domenico Colavito stepped out of a batting slump and into the record books with four mighty swings of his 33-oz. bat. His fourth straight homer, a long blast into the left-field bleachers some 410 ft. away, came in the ninth inning off Baltimore Orioles Reliefer Ernie Johnson, who had not allowed a homer all season. What was more, Colavito brought off his feat in a park rated the toughest in the league for home-run hitters--no team has ever hit more than three home runs there in a single game.

Slugger Colavito, 25, is a rugged (6 ft. 3 in., 190 lbs.) lad, whose rippling biceps seem to make visible bulges on the television screen. The son of a Bronx truck driver, Rocky grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, played ball just across the street in Macomb's Dam Park. Naturally, the Yankees were his boyhood heroes. Naturally, the Yankees gave him a tryout when he was only 16, but let him get away when the Indians topped the Yankees' half-hearted bid with a still modest offer of $3,000. Last year, in his second full season with Cleveland, he blasted 41 homers, just one short of matching Mickey Mantle for the league title.

In the outfield, Colavito's mighty arm is one of the most respected in baseball. In fact, it is so good that the Indians have actually used him as a pitcher on occasion. A modest and religious man, Rocky admits he heard a fan yelling at him after the third homer to go for the record. "I looked up to heaven and said, 'Dear God, I'm not greedy. I'll be happy if I can get a single next time.' I always talk to God. He's been good to me."

* Bobby Lowe of the Boston Nationals in 1894 and Lou Gehrig of the N.Y. Yankees in 1932.

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