Ben Rice Becomes First Yankees Rookie To Hit Three Homers In One Game

It was a nice Saturday in the Bronx for the New York Yankees, who spent the afternoon absolutely throttling their hated rivals, the Boston Red Sox, 14-4.

However, a big chunk of the offense came from a somewhat unexpected place in rookie Ben Rice.

The 35-year-old out of Dartmouth hasn't even played 20 games in the Majors yet having spent most of the season with Double-A Somerset Patriots and the Triple-A Scranton/WIles-Barre RailRiders.

Still, in his first 16 games in the MLB, the first baseman had one home run under his belt, but on Saturday he had another to that total… and another… and another.

Rice didn't waste any time going yard, and his first homer of the day was a lead-off shot to right field.

In the fifth-inning Rice was at it again, this time it was a 3-run shot that once again landed in the right field seats.

Then, in the seventh, why not go for the hat trick? I mean we've already gone this far.

What a day. That scoresheet ended up being filled with more Rice than an order of cheap sushi. He went 3-for-5 on the day with the 3 homers and seven RBIs.

I think that's more than enough for a curtain call.

What's wild though is that this was more than just a great game for a Yankees rookie. Rice's performance was historic.

Before Saturday, a Yankees rookie had never hit 3 home runs in a single game.

Can you believe that? I couldn't. 

The Yankees have been around since the turn of the 20th Century, so I thought for sure that some rookie that time had forgotten had hit a hat trick of homers in the 1900s or 1910s.

They probably would have had a name like Orville "Turpentine" Cooper or Spuds O'Sullivan.

But it turns out that isn't the case. The first rookie to homer three times in a single game in pinstripes was Ben Rice.

Congrats to Ben, and what a cool bit of history.