The Home-run Contest is a 1-player minigame in which one must knock Sandbag as far as possible, usually with the Home-run Bat. The player has 10 seconds to rack up damage to lengthen the home-run. The most effective technique for getting a lot of damage really fast is known as bat dropping.
The player starts on a platform with a sandbag in the center, and the character about 1/3 of the way from the left of the platform facing right. Slightly to the left is a bat, which can be used to hit the bag extremely far. Hitting with the end of the bat, known as a tipper, makes the sandbag go farther than a mid hit, which goes farther than a close hit.
Hitting with the handle of the bat can cause what is known as a no-ping hit. A no-ping hit is used to hit the Sandbag a lot farther than a regular bat hit at damage percentages lower than about 120%. Using a no-ping hit when the Sandbag is only at 35% damage will send the Sandbag over 1000 feet (304.8 meters). It will always do 8% damage. Pichu, Pikachu, and G&W can do a no-ping hit by walking next the bag, turning away from the bag, and swinging. The rest of the characters need the bat to be in the air to perform a no-ping hit. The characters that can't do a no-ping hit or it doesn't go farther than the baseball bat are Dr. Mario, Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, C. Falcon, and Ganondorf.
Prizes
In Super Smash Bros. Melee
- 350 meters/984 feet: Sandbag trophy
- 400 meters/1350 feet: Yoshi's Island N64 stage
- 450 meters/1476 feet: Paper Mario trophy
- 5000 meters/16404 feet total: Unown trophy
Notes
- Approximately 50 feet to the left of the platform is a wall that the bag can bounce off of.
- Changing the game language to Japanese makes the HRC platform slightly larger.
- Olimar is only capable of using Purple Pikmin here.
Moves that can hit farther than the Home-run Bat
- Bowser's fully-charged forward smash
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 120% or more damage. Can do either 32% or 33% damage
- Peach can harvest a bob-omb approximately every 1/300 times she uses down B. Does 38% damage to the Sandbag
- Hits farther than the bat always. Does 27% max damage when right next to the Sandbag
- Donkey Kong's partially charged Giant Punch (neutral B) (30% damage)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 175% or more. Does 30% damage to the Sandbag
- Ganondorf's 30% Warlock Punch (neutral B)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 154% or more. Does 30% damage to the Sandbag
- Pichu's fully-charged Skull Bash (forward B)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 95% or more. Does 39% damage to the Sandbag
- Jigglypuff's Rest (down B)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 69% or more. Does 28% damage to the Sandbag
- Mr. Game & Watch's #9 Judgement (forward B)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 138% or more. Does 32% damage to the Sandbag
- Roy's fully charged Flare Blade (neutral B)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 18% or more. Does 50% damage to the Sandbag
- Roy's partially charged Flare Blade (41% damage instead of 50%)
- Hits farther than the bat when the Sandbag is at 28% or more. Does 41% damage to the Sandbag. Hits farther than the 50% flare blade at 120% or more.
Changes in Brawl
In SSBB, two changes were made:
- Multiplayer is now supported, both online and offline, and also both simultaneous and alternating
- There is a shield around the stadium which prevents the Sandbag from being knocked out without sufficient force. The shield is breakable, but greatly lowered the difficulty of bringing the sandbag's damage up.