What the writer realized, no doubt, was that Tebeau’s introductory dinger was not a sign of things to come. What he might also have realized was that one at-bat is never the patternmaker of future greatness nor even a predictor of a middling career. It is, as they say, what it is: one at-bat.

Of course, for club members, that one at-bat is one to remember. And the one key takeaway is that each, along with the batter who puts it in the books, creates a singular history. In 1895, Joe Harrington became the third member and the second, after Tebeau, to amount to not much. Perhaps it had something to do with the horse-drawn bus accident he suffered near the end of his rookie season. Harrington, with his feet tangled in the railing, got the worst of it. In 72 career games, he totaled three homers.

On Opening Day, 1938, Philadelphia’s Heinie Mueller became the first player in history to hit a leadoff home run in his first at-bat. Four years later, in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, he joined the U.S. Army and in 1945 was wounded in action. He received the Purple Heart.

Joining the military, too, was Clyde Vollmer. Just months before his 1942 enlistment, Vollmer boarded the 1 AM train out of Syracuse to make the 600-mile trip to his hometown of Cincinnati. Upon arrival, he called his dad, Albert, to tell him to go posthaste to Crosley Field. Clyde arrived just in time to get the start. Albert arrived just in time to see Clyde hit a ball onto the left field “laundry roof” to become the 24th club member. Months later, Vollmer was at war. He wouldn’t hit his second homer until 1947.

Upon his own return from World War II, in 1944, Cubs catcher Paul Gillespie wore the “ruptured duck” patch on his uniform indicating an honorable discharge from the service. He provided an honorable discharge of his baseball duties, you might say, by homering in his first post-war at-bat. Deja vu? Gillespie had homered two years earlier in his first-ever big league at-bat. Then in 1945 he homered in his last. He had a flair for the dramatic.

Buddy Kerr, by contrast, had a flair for the comedic. Upon hitting a first-AB homer in 1943, he got so excited that he stumbled rounding first.

Unlike Vollmer, whose career the war interrupted, Hack Miller could thank the war. Having bounced around the boonies, Miller got the call from Detroit in 1944, when rosters had been depleted by military service. In his first at-bat, the 31-year-old Miller hit a three-run inside-the-park home run to give Detroit a 4-3 win over Cleveland. In seven career games, it was his only homer.

By contrast, Whitey Lockman joined on July 5, 1945, at age 18. The two-run blast marked a big moment but not his biggest. Six years later, he scored the tying run on Bobby Thomson‘s Shot Heard ‘Round the World. A shot heard ’round Fenway Park gave Eddie Pellagrini his big moment. That shot was the sound of a Sid Hudson fastball bouncing off Johnny Pesky‘s head. After pinch running for Pesky, Pellagrini blasted the game-winner in his first AB.

A year later, on August 26, 1947, Dan Bankhead became both the first African-American pitcher in the major leagues and the first to homer. It would be his only blast. Sam Vico was next to join. Like Bankhead, he had served three years in the military during World War II. In 1948, three years after his return, he homered on the first pitch he saw. A year later, he nabbed a role in The Monty Stratton Story, about the man who’d yielded Bill LeFebvre’s home run.

In his first at-bat, on May 21, 1948, Les Layton drove the ball onto the left field roof at the Polo Grounds and returned to a quiet Giants dugout. “They didn’t say, ‘Nice going,’ or anything,” he told an interviewer. “Then suddenly they all broke out in rapture.” Layton had just become the first club member in recorded history to suffer the silent treatment.

In a ceremony on June 10, 1995, the town of Clifton, New Jersey, dedicated the baseball field at Albion Memorial Park in the name of Ed Sanicki. Letters of recognition came from President Bill Clinton, Governor Christine Todd Whitman, and parents of children he had taught during his three-decade career as a special-ed teacher. Nearly half a century earlier, on September 14, 1949, the World War II vet had ripped a Rip Sewell pitch over the head of Pirates left fielder and future Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner to join the club.

The next to join, Ted Tappe, had a similar baseball fate but a different existential one. With a swing that observers compared to Ted Williams‘, the 19-year-old Cincinnati rookie whacked a pinch-hit solo home run in his first at-bat to bolster expectations of greatness. Still unpolished, Tappe played just 10 more major league games across the next two seasons. Following an 18-month Army stint and a trade to the Cubs, Tappe began the 1955 season as a part-time and then full-time player. Then on May 29, while rounding second base, Tappe tore his left Achilles tendon.

He would never play in the majors again. In the last years of his life, per a story in The Kitsap Sun, the onetime high-school phenom had become a gaunt alcoholic keeping track of his Wally’s Tavern bar tab on a wrinkled piece of paper. “I should have hit 35 homers a year in that National League,” Tappe told writer John Wallington. “If everything had…”

…

As he stepped into the box on Opening Day, 1954, Wally Moon heard Busch Stadium fans chanting, “We want Eno!” Following an unpopular trade, Moon had replaced fan favorite Enos Slaughter in the Cardinals lineup, and now, prior to his first at-bat, he was hearing all about it. Moon then sent a pitch over the right field pavilion and onto Grand Avenue. Once he reached second base, the jeers had turned to cheers. Once he touched the plate, he’d joined the club. Others would follow, in equally theatrical ways.

In 1960, while injured, Cubs farmhand Cuno Barragan served as the team’s “scoreboard spy,” using a 10-power scope to steal the catcher’s signs and relay the pitch type to the batter. A season later, after rosters expanded on September 1, the 29-year-old catcher got his first at-bat and took advantage, cranking a pitch from Giants starter Dick LeMay toward the Wrigley Field seats. Racing for a double, he saw an umpire signal home run. At that point, he told an interviewer, “I started laughing.” It would be his only blast.

For Bob Tillman, club membership came not in his first game nor even in his second. It came in his third. Even then, it came not in his first plate appearance nor even in his second. It came in his third. After walking in each of his first two trips to the plate, the Boston catcher connected. Today, he remains one of eight players who received at least one plate appearance prior to their first-AB dinger.

John Kennedy‘s first-AB dinger came in that same 1962 campaign. Pinch-hitting on September 5, the Senators call-up ended Minnesota starter Dick Stigman‘s no-hitter in the sixth. Ask not what your team can do for you….

What Baltimore’s Buster Narum did for his team, on May 3, 1963, was homer off Detroit’s Don Mossi. Six weeks later, against Boston, Mossi was replaced by pinch hitter Gates Brown. Brown had taken an unusual path. As an inmate at the Ohio State Reformatory, he had impressed the prison baseball team’s coach. The coach then contacted the Tigers, who secured an early parole for Brown. Now here he was, facing fellow rookie Bob Heffner. He left the yard.

Liberated, too, was Bert Campaneris. Like Eddy Rodriguez nearly half a century later, Campy left Cuba for the United States. He did so as a teenager, signed by the Athletics shortly before the U.S. imposed an embargo on his native country in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then on July 22, 1964, Campy arrived in Minneapolis two hours before game time and in his first at-bat walloped Jim Kaat‘s first pitch for a solo job.

A decade later, John Montefusco arrived at Dodger Stadium just one hour prior to gametime. Four hours hence, he had claimed a tremendous debut. In the first inning, the Dodgers scored four runs against Giants starter Ron Bryant before he recorded an out. In came the Triple-A call-up, and all Montefusco did was pitch nine innings of one-run ball to claim the win. Well, that’s not all he did. In his first official at-bat, he belted a home run.

Three years later, in 1978, Dave Machemer got his big break when Angels third baseman Carney Lansford went down with an injury. He caught another when, during his first at-bat, Twins catcher Butch Wynegar mishandled his foul tip and dropped what would have been strike three. Then on a full count and with a borrowed bat in hand, Machemer went yard. As Machemer entered the dugout, Angels ace Nolan Ryan picked him up in a bear hug.

Eight years later — after Johnnie LeMaster had smacked a liner that bounced for an inside-the-park home run, and Bob Horner had stepped off his college campus and into a home run trot, and Gary Gaetti had hit the first of his 360 career homers — Ryan was less thrilled when he yielded the first of Will Clark‘s 284 career home runs in the first of his 7,173 at-bats. Afterward, Clark said to teammate Chili Davis, “He’s gonna drill me next at-bat, isn’t he?”

Jose Offerman caught a break when Expos third baseman Tim Wallach — who had joined the 1ABHR Club 10 years earlier — slipped while starting for a foul pop-up off the bat of the Dodgers rookie. Offerman then drove a 2-2 pitch from Dennis Martinez into the seats at Dodger Stadium.

Four years later, Offerman’s teammate Garey Ingram couldn’t find his helmet when skipper Tommy Lasorda called on him to pinch hit. He rounded the bases anyway, but only after umpire Steve Rippley told him to keep going after he stopped at second.

Initiations continued, uniquely.

Brad Fullmer caught a break. After Boston starter Bret Saberhagen shook off catcher Scott Hatteberg‘s sign, Fullmer hit the next pitch for a bomb.

Chris Richard caught a break. Twins centerfielder Torii Hunter was out with injury in that 2000 game. After his homer cleared the wall by inches, Richard claimed Hunter would have made the catch. To this day, Richard cites the blast in the marketing copy for his Personal Pitcher pitching machines.

Miguel Olivo? He caught a break, too. Three rain delays totaling two hours threatened to wash away his 2002 blast. It stood.

Mark Saccomanno got the call at 2:30 PM for a 7:05 game and raced to Minute Maid Park in his hometown of Houston. As if still in a hurry, he hit the first pitch for a homer — his only big league blast. In a 3-2 win, it was big.

Japanese import Kazuo Matsui hit his tomorrow — at 8:36 AM Tokyo time.

Luke Hughes, like Matsui, homered tomorrow. He might also have caught a break. In his first plate appearance, on April 28, 2010, he watched as Tigers catcher Alex Avila gunned down Twins teammate Delmon Young to end the Twins’ half of the second inning. He restarted the plate appearance in the top of the third and blasted a home run while his mom watched on the Internet at around noon the next day, so to speak, in his hometown of Perth, Australia.

Lane Thomas? He might also have caught a break. Just prior to what would have been his first plate appearance, on April 17, 2019, he was left in the on-deck circle when Cardinals teammate Marcell Ozuna grounded out to end the top of the ninth against the White Sox. Two nights later, Thomas hit a pitch from Mets reliever Seth Lugo to right field, where it bounced off the top of the wall for a triple. After video review, Thomas was awarded a home run.

Thomas became the 121st to join the club and the first to do it via replay. On July 27, 2020 — more than 13 months after White Sox rookie Zack Collins became the 122nd member — Reds rookie Tyler Stephenson drove a ball 421 feet to become 123rd and latest member and the first to do it in a stadium with an official attendance of zero.

Officials didn’t need to rewatch the Stephenson blast. Still, thanks to video, the rest of us can rewatch the past 60 initiations and 63 of the past 74. In Part 2 — Let’s Go to the Videotape! — we’ll do exactly that. Included in the video-age initiations is that of Eddy Rodriguez, who, like Stephenson, joined the club at Great American Ball Park.