CLEVELAND — The tickets were an early birthday gift from David Cox to his younger brother, Tim, who turns 24 on Wednesday. Two seats in Row Y in the left-field stands for the Home Run Derby, seats that David figured would be prime ball-hunting spots.
But David’s season tickets aren’t in the left-field stands, so he didn’t know that Row Y was actually the very last row in left field. That realization sank in as they headed to their seats.
“We’re walking up the steps and I’m thinking, ‘Man, nothing’s getting up here,’ ” David told Sporting News. "... But then Vlad started by hitting the scoreboard.”
BENDER: This was a Home Run Derby for the ages
The first swing from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., was one few people in Cleveland will ever forget. Every pre-Derby criticism of Guerrero’s inclusion — “But … but … but he only has eight home runs this year!” was the cry — stopped when the Blue Jays rookie smoked that first home run 462 feet, off the scoreboard.
The sound of the baseball smacking off that Progressive Field scoreboard immediately brought back memories of another blast for pretty much every Cleveland baseball fan, a ball Mark McGwire hit off the Budweiser sign, a 485-foot blast off Orel Hershiser on April 30, 1997.
Rick Bartos was at that McGwire game, and he was sitting next to the Cox brothers for the Derby, watching with his buddy Mike Erney. The sense of deja vu was strong, to say the least.
“I didn’t know how far McGwire’s was until it went off the Budweiser sign,” Bartos said. “I was telling these guys I was there for that game, but when Vlad hit that one, I was like, ‘Oh, my God.’ ”
Vlad’s ball was headed right at them, providing a few terrifying moments.
“We lost it. We saw it going up and up and then we lost it,” David said. “Didn’t know if it was coming at us, if it was hooking in or what.”
Tim jumped in. “And then all of a sudden you hear the smack up top above us. Everyone goes nuts: ‘Oh, my God!’ ”
The ball bounced back a few rows, off someone’s arm and into a scrum of stunned — but excited — treasure seekers. That first mammoth homer was just the beginning of an unforgettable night for the Blue Jays rookie third baseman.
“That was amazing,” veteran Yankees lefty CC Sabathia said with a grin after the contest. “That was just for all the haters who said he shouldn’t have been there.”
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Guerrero’s longest blast of the night was 488 feet, three feet longer than McGwire’s blast. He hit 29 homers in the first round and another 29 in the second round. Well, 29 in the first part of the second round.
Joc Pederson tied him with 29 of his own. They both hit eight more in the 60-second tiebreaker. Then they both hit one homer on three swings in the next tiebreaker round.
And then, finally, Guerrero prevailed with two homers on three swings to Pederson’s one. He finished with 40, one more than Pederson, and then he hit another 22 in the final round, but Mets rookie Pete Alonso edged him out.
Guerrero did what teammate Marcus Stroman hinted at earlier in the day, during the media interview session.
Marcus Stroman knew Vlad Jr. was about to do something special tonight ... pic.twitter.com/HsbinzFXv8
— Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) July 9, 2019
He finished with a total of 91 on the night.
“I heard a lot of stuff before, people were talking trash that he shouldn’t be in it,” said Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who was knocked out in the first round by Pederson. “He proved a lot of people wrong tonight, and he showed the world that he’s coming.”
Or, that he’s already here.
