On this Date in Padres History 5/16/1988: Gary Carter hits his 299th HR but plays the waiting game afterwards

On this date in San Diego Padres history, the Padres played witness to the 299th home run hit by New York Mets catcher Gary Carter in the seventh inning of a 7-4 victory over San Diego at Jack Murphy Stadium.

The craziest part about this is not so much the home run, but how long it took Carter in between hitting #299 and finally recording his 300th home run. Following this game, Carter would see 230 more at-bats and go a full three months before hitting his next homer on August 11th in a 9-6 win over the Chicago Cubs.

Carter would finish his career with 324 career home runs across four more years with three different teams before calling it a career following the 1992 season. Carter was an 11x All-Star, a former World Series Champion, and a 3x Golden Glove award winner with all three honors coming in consecutive seasons. He has since be inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame and had his No. 8 retired by the Montreal Expos (later relocated to Washington and re-branded as the Nationals.) In 2003, he was finally inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame.