San Francisco Giants' Willie McCovey Hits 500th Home Run

On June 30, 1978, San Francisco Giants slugger and Hall of Fame first baseman Willie McCovey hits his 500th career home run off Atlanta Braves' reliever James Easterly.

McCovey hitting his 500th career home run.

McCovey became just the 12th player in history to reach the 500-home run mark, which was considered tantamount to an automatic Hall of Fame induction.

Barry Bonds (center) with Willie McCovey (left) and god father Willie Mays (right) after he hit his 500th home run.

McCovey finished his career with 521 longballs, tying him with Ted Williams on the all-time list.



McCovey Cove and AT&T Park in San Francisco, Calif.

McCovey held the record for most intentional walks in a season (45) for over thirty years, until fellow Giants great Barry Bonds shattered it with 68 intentional walks in 2002.

Bonds earned the pitchers' respect partly by knocking pitches into the ocean, just beyond the shallow right field wall at Pac Bell Park, now AT&T Park.

That area of the water was honored after one Willie McCovey, and was called "McCovey Cove." See how it all came together?

World Baseball Classic Debuts

On March, 3, 2006, that the inaugural World Baseball Classic held its first ever games.  Two games were played on that day with South Korea beating Chinese Taipei 2-0 and Japan hammering China 18-2.  Both games were played in the Tokyo Dome.

The tournament featured teams from all over the world playing in venues all across the globe.  All continents of the world were represented at this competition except for Antarctica, and games were held in North America, Asia and Central America.  Japan would capture the first World Baseball Classic by beating Cuba 10-6 in the Championship game.  Daisuke Matsuzaka, the starting pitcher for the Japanese team, was named the tournament’s MVP.

Although interest and attendance was not as high as tournament directors had hoped, the inaugural World Baseball Classic was still deemed a success. A second Classic was held in 2009 and a third tournament was held in 2013 with the finals being played at AT&T Park in San Francisco.