Defense was his game.
"But I pride myself on being able to hit," Litton told The AP afterward. "I think I've been trying too hard. I've never been a home run hitter. I have some power, but that's not my best asset."
Litton hit that home run in his fourth major league season. He ended up getting time in two more, 374 total big league games in all. He hit 13 big league home runs.
Litton's career began in 1984, taken by the Giants in the first round of the January draft out of Pensacola Junior College in Florida.
Litton started with the Giants at short-season Everett. He hit .235 in 62 games. He moved to single-A Fresno in 1985, then AA Shreveport in 1986. He hit .246 there.
Litton then split 1987 between Shreveport and AAA Phoenix and played 1988 back at Shreveport. He started 1989 at Phoenix. That May, he made the majors.
With San Francisco in 1989, Litton got into 71 games. He hit .252 with four home runs. He hit his second home run in a July game off the Cardinals' Frank DiPino.
That October, the rookie also got to play in the World Series. He went 3 for 6.
Litton returned to the Giants for another 93 games in 1990. He hit .245 while knocking in 24. In August, Litton helped the Giants to a win with a tie-breaking double, avoiding a sweep.
"We all knew we needed the win to avoid the sweep," Litton told The AP after that game. "But you can't think of all that when you're at the plate. That's one of the big reasons we've had the success we've had is that we don't think about the past."
Litton continued with the Giants for two more seasons, getting into 59 games in 1991 and 68 in 1992.
He then moved to the Mariners for 72 games in 1993, hitting .299. He rounded out his big league career with 11 games in Boston in 1994.
He then played one more season at AAA in 1995, ending his professional career.
Years after his playing career ended, Litton recalled to a Pensacola magazine how he got his start in the game in high school, after failing to make the school's baseball team as a freshman.
"My dream was always to play major league baseball, and I learned real quick that I was going to have to earn it. It wasn’t going to come easy," Litton told the magazine InWeekly years later. "If I wanted it, I was going to have to start lifting weights, I was going to have to start running, and working at it, and that's what I did."
- Spokane Spokesman-Review, Associated Press, Aug. 9, 1990: Giants battle back, snap Astros' streak
- Eugene Register-Guard, Associated Press, May 14, 1992: Williams goes deep and deeper; Giants stay on top
- InWeekly, 2013: Take Me Out To The Ballgame
Players/Coaches Featured:1,782
Made the Majors: 838 - 47.0%-X
Never Made Majors: 944-53.0%
5+ Seasons in the Majors: 361-X
10+ Seasons in the Minors:212
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