In the 2025 Men’s College World Series, no team hit a bases-loaded big fly out of Charles Schwab Field, maintaining the total at 52 and ending the three-year run of grand slams in Omaha. In 14 games, there were just 14 home runs.
An overview of the MCWS’s grand salami, which now has 52 in total, may be found here.
The Gators scored 51 and 52.
Even though getting to Omaha is difficult, hitting the final two grand slams is even more commendable.
With the final two grand slams in 2023 and 2024, Florida was in the lead. In the first inning of a second-round, win-or-go-home game versus Kentucky at the 2024 MCWS, Brody Donay hit the 52nd.
Donay’s grand slam, which gave Florida a 7-1 lead in the first inning, predicted the outcome of the game. Even though Donay finished 3-5 with two home runs and five RBIs, they would go on to win 15-4 and advance to the semifinals. 117.6 mph was the grand slam’s exit velocity.
In 2023, following UF’s historic 24-4 victory against the Tigers in game two of the championship final, Florida’s Ty Evans smashed No. 51 against LSU. In the history of the finals, it was the first grand slam.
Evans also got out quickly after hitting his ninth home run of the season and a grand slam in the third inning. It cracked game two wide open with a launch angle of 51.2 degrees and an exit velocity of 109 mph.
The drought ends in 2022
In the first game of the 2022 MCWS, Jackson Nicklaus of Oklahoma blasted a one-out first-pitch grand slam in the top of the fourth inning after going four years without hitting one. Nicklaus’ 11th of the season, the dinger gave the Sooners a 12-3 lead over Texas A&M. In the history of Charles Schwab Field, it was the third grand slam.
In a 2018 MCWS elimination game against the Tar Heels, Westburg hit a two-out grand slam in the top of the second inning. He had only hit two home runs this season. In 2019, he missed the opportunity of hitting a second career world series grand slam, which has only been done once before on the biggest stage in college baseball.
The first grand slam in MCWS
That one occurred in 1950, the tournament’s fourth year. In the Longhorns’ 12-1 victory over Washington State, Kal Segrist of Texas went deep in the bottom of the third inning. That season, Texas won the national championship for the second time in consecutive years.
So far, this is the only pinch-hit grand slam.
Perhaps the most improbable grand slam in MCWS history occurred five years later. Freed Messner of Western Michigan hit the only pinch-hit grand slam in the history of the MCWS in the top of the eighth inning, but it was insufficient as the Broncos lost to Wake Forest 10-7 in 1955. Messner went 1-for-12 in the MCWS.
Years when there were several grand slams
Multiple grand slams in a single MCWS have occurred eleven times, with a high of four grand slams in 1998.
In the history of MCWS, Arizona State has been engaged in two games where both teams went yard with the bases loaded. Arizona State and Southern California each hit grand homers in the Trojans’ high-scoring, championship-clinching 21-14 victory in 1998, and the Sun Devils and Oral Roberts traded grand smashes in the first three innings of their 1978 MCWS battle.
In 1978, Southern California also defeated the Sun Devils in the championship game. The Trojans are the most recent national champions to win the MCWS.
Walk-off MCWS grand slam
When Stanford right fielder Paul Carey hit the only walk-off grand slam in MCWS history against LSU in the bottom of the tenth inning in 1987, it was one of the most thrilling hits in collegiate baseball history. In the MCWS, with the Cardinals behind 5-2, Carey came to the plate batting.154 (2-for-13 with two singles and one RBI), meaning Stanford needed all four runs to win. In the finals, the Cardinal defeated Oklahoma State to earn its first-ever national championship.
The grand slam is owned by Stanford and Cal State Fullerton
Paul and Mark are the players with the most grand slams of any first name, at three each. Mark Kotsay, an outfielder for Cal State Fullerton, hit two grand homers during his collegiate career, against Florida State in 1994 and Tennessee in 1995. He is the first player to do so.
In the MCWS, Stanford and the Titans each have six grand slams to their credit. Both schools had a run of three grand slams without another school hitting one in between, out of the 48 grand slams at the MCWS. Brian Loyd, a teammate, hit a grand slam against the Volunteers in 1995, after Kotsay’s two. In the 1999 and 2000 MCWS, the Cardinal hit three grand slams in total.
On two separate occasions, a grand slam has been the sole run scored by a side during a whole MCWS game. While Texas’ Mike Brumley went yard with the bases juiced in 1983, which proved to be enough offense in a 4-2 victory against Michigan, Don Fazio of Ithaca’s bases-loaded home run was insufficient in a 5-4 defeat to Florida State in 1962.
In the MCWS, a team that hit a grand slam won by exactly four runs twice, most recently by TCU in 2010. Below, you can watch Matt Curry of TCU connect on his 2010 grand slam.
Drama in the ninth inning
Ironically, two of those teams lost, both to Arizona State: Oral Roberts in 1978 and Miami (Fla.) in 1984. However, there have been three grand slams in the top of the first inning in the MCWS. There have been five grand homers in the ninth inning, the most recent coming from Tim Federowicz of North Carolina, who delivered the Tar Heels a 7-3 victory on Friday, June 20, 2008, following the suspension of a game versus LSU that began the previous day due to rain.
In the last session, Federowicz’s home run ended a tie game.
The 2018 MCWS saw three of the top 12 home run-hitting teams in the nation (Texas Tech, Florida, and Arkansas) progress to Omaha, so don’t be shocked if the number of grand slams at the tournament rises in the upcoming weeks.
