a quick trip
It takes a dash of speed and a pinch of luck to hit an inside-the-park home run. Jake Mangum had both going for him on Wednesday. The former Mississippi State star from Flowood banged a high fly ball off the wall in center field at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. Denzel Clarke, the A’s remarkably athletic center fielder, just missed making the catch, crashed into the wall and fell to the ground in a heap as Mangum flew around the bases and scored standing up. It was just the third IPHR of the MLB season — the 24th in Rays history — and it contributed to a 6-5 win that moved the team within a half-game of first place in the American League East. Mangum was timed at 14.98 seconds making the circuit. The record in the Statcast era (since 2015) is Byron Buxton’s 13.85 in 2017, per mlb.com. Known more for his speed than power, Mangum has two homers and 11 steals in 51 games in his rookie season. In 437 minor league games, Mangum hit 24 homers and stole 81 bags. He said after Wednesday’s game that he doesn’t recall ever hitting an inside-the-park homer, even in his amateur days. They are rare. Consider that former Taylorsville High star Billy Hamilton, regarded as one of the fastest ever to play the game, never hit one in his 11-year big league career. (He reportedly circled the bases in a hand-timed 13.8 seconds on an IPHR in Double-A.) McComb native Jarrod Dyson, another well-known speedster, hit one IPHR in his 12-year MLB career. Gulfport’s Matt Lawton, another fast man who played from 1995-2006, never got an IPHR. A little research in Baseball Almanac records indicates that Greenville native Frank White recorded three inside-the-parkers back in the 1970s, and Vicksburg’s Ellis Burks tallied two in the mid-’90s. P.S. Kudos to Slater Lott, new coach at Itawamba Community College. The former Pearl River CC hitting coach — he was NJCAA Division II assistant of the year in 2022 — replaces Rick Collier, who retired after 23 highly successful years at ICC. Lott, a former Clarkdale High player, also coached at Meridian CC and Delta State. He joins Brian O’Connor (Mississippi State) and Patrick Robey (Belhaven) as new coaches for 2026.