Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Aaron Hill accomplished a rare feat on June 18th against the Mariners, hitting a single, double, triple and home run, all in one game. Hitting for the cycle is one of those exceptional occurrences that hitters can strive for, possibly akin to a pitcher's attempts to throw a no-hitter. Hill did the unbelievable though and hit for the cycle for the 2nd time in 12 days last week - which, notably, is much more rare than throwing a no-hitter. In fact, Brooklyn's Babe Herman is the only other major leaguer to hit for two cycles in one season since 1900, according to STATS LLC. Herman did that way back in 1931.
Hill joined XTRA 910 in Phoenix to talk about his history making feat, and you can read parts of it after the jump, via SportsRadioInterviews.com.
His thoughts on hitting it into the gap when the last hit he needed was a triple:
"Honestly I was just going up to try to get another hit. It really did't get into my mind because, obviously, a triple is on of the harder hits to get. When I saw Nyjer didn't run it down, I thought, okay this is possible."
When looking at both of your cycles, one was completed with a home run and the other with a triple. Those aren't the easiest things to do in that situation:
"Luckily, it's a pretty good ballpark. Got one in the gap and it just kind of bounced around a little bit. It worked out perfect I guess"
When talking about hitting for the cycle twice in eleven days and looking into the past, are you surprised it doesn't happen more often?
"I don't know. Like I said, I'll take every hit. You're not going up there every day trying to hit a double, triple, single or even a home run. Try to relax and take any hits that they'll give you. It just kind of worked out great but as far as going back, I don't know how many years they said it was, eighty something years, it's pretty neat to think about. It's kind of cool, we got a call from Cooperstown today, they wanted the cleats sent right away so, I wasn't going to say no to that. Now I don't have any cleats to wear for the game tonight [laughs] ."