Pete Ridges just sent a message to the SABR e-mail discussion list, pointing out that this past Sunday, while playing at Cincinnati, Milwaukee became the first team in Major League Baseball history to start off a game by hitting three consecutive home runs (box score and play-by-play sheet)

Ridges offered the opinion that:

Unusually, some reports have undersold this, by saying that the Brewers were the third team to start their first inning with 3 HR. However, the other two cases came in the bottom of the first...

The other trifectas were by San Diego in 1987 and Atlanta in 2003.

Offensively, of course, only a visiting team can start off a game. From this perspective, Milwaukee's feat is technically unique. However, for a home team to lead off its half of the first inning with three straight homers is pretty darn impressive, too.

Whether any given reader considers the Brewers to be in a class by themselves or to share the record with two other teams, Ridges's conclusion helps put everything in context:

By my addition there had been 188,835 major league games through Sunday, so I was extremely impressed by this.