NEW YORK -- Three weeks from Friday will mark the 35th anniversary of Cecil Fielder hitting his 50th home run against the Yankees on Oct. 3 of the 1990 season. It seems like a mundane milestone now, but until Fielder, nobody had broken the 50-homer threshold since George Foster in 1977.

Fielder hit his 50th home run on the final day of the regular season at Yankee Stadium, taking rookie Steve Adkins deep. For good measure, Fielder hit another in his final at-bat off Alan Mills. In between those historic homers, he had another bit of history: He struck out for the 182nd time that season, taking a called third strike from Rich Monteleone.

Fielder already had the Tigers’ single-season strikeout record, having passed Jake Wood’s 141 strikeouts from 1961 in mid-August. It ended up being by fa

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