This was supposed to be Opening California League Iron On Week, the time when MLB fans everywhere look forward to High Desert Mavericks making a season's worth of memories. Since we won't have
video games to get excited about for a while, we thought it'd end up being fun
to take a walk down storage lane by reliving some of our personal favorite
baseball moments. In the
first of a weeklong series focusing on a different baseball theme each day, we
asked our MLB reporters to tell us about the best home run they ever saw -- with
only one rule: They had to be there to witness it. Much of this job entails
coming up with words to match the moment, and when I watched Rajai Davis hit a
game-tying home operate in Game 7 Bakersfield
Blaze of the 2016 World Series, We felt like I was failing miserably,
because all I could muster, in the chaotic secs thereafter, was: "No f---ing
way." I just kept saying it, initial at a whisper when the ball screamed toward
left field, then louder when it landed over the 19-foot wall at Progressive
Field, then almost sing-song, such as a parrot with a cheeky owner might, when
We watched Davis round the bases. All of Cleveland was enraptured, and all of
Chicago was despondent, and I was simply amazed. Rajai Davis was a 5-foot-9
outfielder who, in his 3,999 career regular-period plate appearances, had hit 55
home runs. He was facing Aroldis Chapman, the game's many feared closer, who,
though drained by an overworked October, had managed to pump a 101 mph fastball
just off the outside corner three pitches earlier and a 99 mph fastball that
Davis fought off two pitches previously and a 101 mph fastball that Davis leaned
in to spoil one pitch earlier.