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In the United League's four decades, there have been  90-plus homer hat tricks,  40-plus 15-strikeout games and batting cycles, 37 no-hitters. But no individual feat, other than the perfect game, is so rare as the six-hit game for a batter.  It is so rare, that a decade passed between 1979 and 1989 when Tony Gwynn got six on May 22.

Then the 1991 season came along, and the league witness two six-hit games on successive days.

Havana's Alvaro Espinoza and Denver's Luis Polonia pulled off the feat onMay 28 and 29. Espinoza, a 29-year-old shortstop from Venezuela, was batting .295 coming into the game at Manhattan on May 28. In a nine-inning affair, Alvaro hit 6-for-6, including three doubles. The next day, Polonia, a 26-year-old left fielder who had started just four games, was informed that starting LF Tim Raines was getting the day off and was penciled in as Denver's leadoff man at home against Manhattan. In another nine-inning affair, Polonia went 6-for-6 (all singles) and raised his average from .283 to .356 in just over three hours.

Detroit Sound's Stan Rojek was the first to collect six hits in a ballgame. He did it on July 13, 1951—two weeks after the outbreak of the Korean War—and was famously drafted into the Army during his congratulatory phone call from President Truman. Detroit 1B Ferris Fain became the first, and as of 1991 the only, player to have two six-hit games in a career; his came just three months apart in 1952. There were six six-packs in the '80s, including by L.A.'s Dave Winfield and John Castino in 1979, then that 10-year gap before Gwynn's in 1989.

The fact that both six-hit games came against Manhattan pitching in back-to-back nights might raise some concerns with the Gray Sox coaching staff. Sox pitchers gave up 44 hits in two games—a 17-16 win and 2-14 loss. Dave Rozema gave up nine hits in 1.1 innings in the first game, and five consecutive relievers gave up at least three hits in the second game.