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As a left-handed hitter who had difficulty covering the outside black, Kevin Kane altered his position inside the batter’s box to get closer to the plate.
The slight adjustment, combined with Kane’s willingness to merely turn his back in an albeit feeble attempt to get out of the way of an inside fastball or a curve that didn’t break, resulted in him becoming a baseball magnet.
Kane, who is now a guidance department supervisor at Woodbridge High School, was beaned four times in a single game while playing for the South Plainfield baseball team during the 1996 season, an accomplishment he didn’t realize until recently ties him for a national record.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations’ official baseball record book, three players have been hit by a pitch four times in a single game. They include Guy Ball of Michigan’s Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart, Spencer Wiskus of Iowa’s Iowa City West and Jordan Spurlock of Oklahoma’s Inola.
Kane’s name should be added to the list. He was beaned four times in four plate appearances during an 11-3 victory over Plainfield on April 20. Kane was drilled in the back during three trips and plunked in the knee once. Starting pitcher Christian Guitterez hit Kane three times and reliever Nelson Cruz beaned him again.
We’ve emailed NFHS assistant director Elliot Hopkins, who is charged with the oversight of baseball for the national federation, in an attempt to ensure Kane’s name is added to the official record book and are awaiting his reply.
Kane’s exploits were documented in multiple newspaper accounts including one which Courier News sports writer Harry Frezza authored.
“I don’t move out of the way,” Kane told Frezza in April 1996. “If the ball is coming at me, I just turn my back. I just get bruises, really. But two summers ago I got hit by a pitch and the ball rolled past the pitcher’s mound. It hit me square in the back. The ball left seam marks. I don’t go up there intending to get hit. It just happens. I had had trouble with the outside pitch, so I moved up on the plate.”
Kane grew up playing wiffle ball and actually was on the professional wiffle ball circuit for five years, traveling around the northeast and competing in a national tournament, where his team once finished among the Top 25 in the country. He was featured in a documentary about the professional league.
“That also could have contributed to the fact I was used to getting hit by pitches,” Kane said in a recent interview, noting he made no effort as a child to get out of the way of wiffle balls that didn’t break.
Kane, who was recently flipping through an old scrapbook when he came across the two newspaper clippings documenting his achievement, said he was always curious where being hit four times in a single game may have ranked nationally.
“It’s kind of like finding a fossil,” Kane said of discovering nearly two decades after the fact that he is a national record holder. “To be nationally recognized is an honor.”
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