The ChiSox Pat Seerey was the only guy to do it in the 1940s. Also ... 7x All-Star Lake Appling, Cleveland Plain Dealer?*

Last week Kyle Schwarber became just the 21st player in baseball history to hit four homers in a game. He's also the third guy to do it this year. Rookie Nick Kurtz did it a month ago with Oakland A's while Eugenio Suarez accomplished the feat for the D-Backs in April. More: The last time anyone did it before this season was in 2017, when two guys did it: Scooter Gennett (Reds) and J.D. Martinez (D-Backs again).

Is that common for this particular feat? The uncommon happening several times in the same year?

For this century, yes, but not previously. Let's break it down by decade:

• 1890s: 2: Bobby Lowe (Beaneaters/Braves, 1894), Ed Delahanty (Phillies, 1896) <— Probably insider-the-parkers
• 1900s: 0
• 1910s: 0
• 1920s: 0
• 1930s: 2: Lou Gehrig (Yankees, 1932), Chuck Klein (Phillies, 1936) <-- So Gehrig is the first legit 4-homer guy.
• 1940s: 1: Pat Seerey (White Sox, 1948) <-- Seerey hit 86 career over 7 seasons, while leading the league in strikeouts four times. 
• 1950s: 3: Gil Hodges (Dodgers, 1950), Joe Adcock (Braves, 1954), Rocky Colavito (Indians, 1959) <-- Three in a decade!
• 1960s: 1: Willie Mays (Giants, 1961) <-- When I became aware of baseball history as a kid in the early 1970s, Mays was the last guy to do it, and 1961 seemed forever ago.
• 1970s: 1: Mike Schmidt (Phillies, 1976) <-- But then Schmidt. I think I was disappointed. I liked Willie Mays being the last. 
• 1980s: 1: Bob Horner (Braves, 1986) <-- Horner was exciting when he came up, so I wasn't surprised when he did it.
• 1990s: 1: Mark Whiten (Cardinals, 1993) <-- After several big names, Whiten's was a surprise. Like Seerey's, Whiten's happened in one game of a doubleheader.
• 2000s: 3: Mike Camerson (Mariners, 2002), Shawn Green (Dodgers, 2002), Carlos Delgado (Blue Jays, 2003) <-- Three in two years? Crazy. Plus not Grffey but the guy who replaced Griffey?
• 2010s: 3: Josh Hamilton (Rangers, 2012), Scooter Gennett (Reds, 2017), J.D. Martinez (Diamondbacks, 2017) <-- Two in 2017.
• 2020s: 3: Eugenio Suarez (Diamondbacks, 2025), Nick Kurtz (A's, 2025), Kyle Schwarber (Phillies, 2025) < Three this season.

So as many 4-homer games have happened this season as in any previous decade.

The list is a little National League-heavy, isn't it: 14-7. Except the same number of teams in each league have done it (7), but the AL spreads the wealth. They're all one-and-doners: Yankees, White Sox, Indians, Mariners, Blue Jays, Rangers, A's. Not so the NL:

• Phillies: 4 !!!!
• Braves: 3 
• Dodgers: 2
• Diamondbacks: 2
• Giants, Cardinals, Reds: 1 each

The bad news for the Phillies, D-Backs and A's? The only guy to hit 4 homers and be in the World Series that year was Gehrig in '32, which the Yankees won vs. Chicago, the called-shot year. I guess that's just bad news for the Phillies. Don't think the D-Backs and A's are looking toward playing much October baseball.

* I get why this was played up in Cleveland: Seerey came up with Cleveland but was traded *that year*, June 2, to the White Sox for pitcher Bob Kennedy. And a month and a half later, he does this. That said, Cleveland wound up having a pretty good 1948 season. You can read more about it in “Our Team: The Epic Story of Four Men and the World Series that Changed Baseball,” by Luke (not Lake) Epplin, which is much recommended.