The St. Cloud Rox baseball team is featured in this photograph from 1960. Among those pictured is Kansan Gil Carter (seated in the front row, second from the left). Carter was a power-hitting outfielder in the third and final season of his minor league career. In 1958 and 1959, he played for the Carlsbad Potashers. He is best known for the home run he hit on August 11, 1959 in a game against the Odessa Dodgers. The official scorekeeper put the home run distance at 650 feet. However, estimates based on aerial photograph measurements were reported at 700-733 feet, which would make it the longest home run in baseball history. In his three minor league seasons, Carter batted for a .264 average, hit 72 home runs, and had 266 RBIs. He led the Sophomore League in home runs in 1959, with 34. While in St. Cloud, he was named to the Northern League All-Star Team. In the early 1960s, Carter was the starting left fielder for the Wichita Rapid Transit Dreamliners, a team that won national semi-pro baseball championships in 1962 and 1963. His national tournament performance in 1962 (.484 batting average and six home runs) earned him a spot on the National Baseball Congress All-American Team. Carter was born and raised in Topeka. He lived in Wichita for nearly four decades before returning to Topeka in 2000. Digital reproduction of the photograph was accomplished through a joint project sponsored by the Kansas Historical Society and the Shawnee County Baseball Hall of Fame.
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