Baseball is a sport that thrives on its history. The hall of fame ballot is an annual cacophony of debate, statistical milestones are tracked and followed with more fervour than some religions, and moments of note are known by single words or phrases.

The catch

The streak

The called shot

Mr October

Baseball is nothing if not concise with its posterity.

Being a Brit and a baseball fan means that I did not grow up being indoctrinated into the shared lore of the National Pastime, so I had to pick up the pieces as I went along. Throwaway comments led to furious google searches, MLB.com and youtube were scoured for clips burned into the memories of so many fans but new to me.

So whenever I managed to watch baseball live, I had a feeling in the back of my mind that I should be recording every moment on the off chance that I need to recount where I was when ‘that’ happened.

I am now a shade over 10 years into my baseball fandom, and it’s possible I’ve lived through a good few of these moments. Thus far though, there has been one of these I have actually seen live.

(footnote – it turns out this moment won’t go down in history, mainly due to the fickle nature of ‘top’ prospects in baseball – but that’s a story for another post)

It is opening day of the 2010 season.

The Braves are kicking off their season at 8PM UK time, so I settle in to watch them face off against the Cubs (my nominal 2nd team having been on holiday to Chicago and seen my only games in person at Wrigley FIeld).

The biggest news for the Braves is that their starting right fielder is the top prospect in baseball. A 6-5 “phenom” who has rose to stardom despite playing only 50 games above Class A minor league ball.

The Braves are 4 years removed from the last season of their historic playoff run. 4 seasons of mediocrity that coincided with my starting to call myself a fan.

But in Heyward the Braves have a lightning rod for excitement, and my first experience of genuine full-on excitement in a player as a baseball fan.

Pitching for the Cubs is the flamethrowing but notoriously fiery Carlos Zambrano.

Once we reach the bottom of the 1st, 5 of the first 6 batters reach base (Troy Glaus striking out swinging a sign of what is to come from him this season), 3 runs scored, erasing the 3 run lead that the Cubs claimed in the top of the 1st.

Brian McCann and Yunel Escobar (two of my favourite modern-day Braves) are on base, and the J-Hey Kid is stepping up to the plate for the first time in his Major League career.

Here is what happens next:

Swing and a drive.
Belted Right.
WELCOME TO THE SHOW.


This moment, and those words still brings genuine goosebumps to my arms and shivers down my spine. It seems a futile thing to say that the emotion associated with a moment is indescribable while I’m writing a blog post attempting to describe it, but I feel it is important to convey the monumentality of this moment. It is very common to have moments in sport of high expectations and even greater disappointment, or no expectation leading to fireworks of surprise blossoming before you on a pitch. Rarely is it the case that colossal expectations are met, and even more rarely that they are exceeded.

But in this moment they were.

I had sat down on opening day, wanting to believe in this team and this player.

Not long later, I was on my feet celebrating a moment that I could scarcely believe.

I rewatched the moment as soon as it appeared as a replayable highlight popup, and it was then that I heard the announcer’s words for the first time – and I doubled down in my delight at having seen it in the flesh. Being a nigh-on-obsessive sports fan, I am in constant admiration of commentators, and Chip Caray does the best possible job here – framing a moment that may go down in posterity with words that somehow seem the most natural and at the same time perfectly scripted for what has just taken place.

Now of course while Heyward went on to have an impressive year, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year, his career took an odd series of turns from there. He was eventually traded to the Cards after his Rookie year proved to be the highlight of his time with the Braves. From there he ended up at the Cubs, where he was credited with an inspirational speech that eventually led to their game 7 and drought-ending World Series victory.

Jason Heyward’s career will be notable for his time with the Cubs, but it’s unlikely he’ll end up in Cooperstown. His time with the Braves and that home run will likely not make it onto any historical top 50 video countdowns of baseball history.

But for me and my own love of baseball, that home run and that call will always be the first moment I felt a connection with the history of the sport, and felt like I may deserve to call myself a baseball fan.