Image credit: © Brett Davis-Imagn Images
Drake Baldwin and I have something in common. We’ve both hit a homer to straightaway center field. I’ll tell you about mine first, since it’s obviously the more interesting of the two. It’s also the only ball I’ve ever hit over an outfield fence in any baseball or baseball-adjacent competition in my life.
I used to be a supervisor at a day camp, and we had a staff slow-pitch softball game after work one evening. My team was down by 12 in the ninth inning, and I came to the plate with one out and no one on. We were playing with a rule that each team could only hit one home run per inning, and additional homers would count as outs. I have no idea why. Having never ever hit a dinger before, I didn’t think there was much risk in taking my best swing, hoping I could at least dunk it over the infielders for once. The ball sailed well over second base and headed towards the 200 ft. sign in center. One of my counselors was playing defense, and he raced back to the wall and leaped at the fence, but the ball fell just beyond his outstretched glove. It’s for the best that he didn’t catch it because I would’ve had to fire him.
Without exaggeration, it was the longest home run trot you’ll ever see. I think it took me at least three minutes to reach home plate. I carried the bat with me around the bases and brandished it like a swashbuckler’s sword at each of the infielders as my teammates chanted, “Selfish! Selfish!” We lost the game by 11.
Last week, Baldwin did his best Daniel R. Epstein impersonation and hit a home run to dead center. His went a little further than mine. In fact, the 473-foot blast was the longest homer in MLB this season. Since he and I both have experience in these matters, I will interpret and explain his methods so you can someday hit a bomb to center field, too.
