Rant #2,172: Hit Me With Your Best Shot

The New York Yankees are in first place by percentage points in the American League East.

They beat the hated Boston Red Sox 11-1 last night, leapfrogging over the team from Beantown just like they leap frogged over the Yankees the previous evening, when they beat the Yankees.

The Yankees won two of three games between their hated rivals, and now own the best record in baseball.

I am happy as we near the mid-way point of the season, but yesterday made be especially happy.

The Yankees hit six home run yesterday evening, three by Aaron Hicks, but one of those six homers will stand out over the others whatever happens this season.

The story of Kyle Higashioka is an interesting one.

The catcher, a long-time minor leaguer who is in an organization with two of the best catchers in baseball ahead of him in the depth chart--Gary Sanchez (offense and arm) and Austin Romine (defense)--was pretty much stuck at the minor league level, and a thought was never rendered that he would be called up this season for any reason, in particular because he was hitting below .200 at the Triple A level.

Then Sanchez, who was having a subpar year to begin with, got hurt, and the Yankees needed another catcher. Enter Higashioka.

Like last season, he was called up more as an emergency catcher to back up Romine while Sanchez mended for a month or so. He would probably play maybe once a week, at most, twice a week.

Last season, Higashioka went hitless in 18 at bats, not quite the major league record, not quite the Yankees record, but heck, even pitchers get hits every once in a while when they bat.

So he played in a game or two this season, and the futility continued to being hitless in 22 at bats, including his first at bat last night, when he struck out looking.

He was approaching a Yankees record, which I believe was 0 for 27 that Dave Bergman posted 30 years ago or so. Bergman went on to have a decent career with other teams, but that is how his major league career began.

Whatever the case, Higashioka strode up to the plate in the fourth inning, and people knew this wasn't Aaron Judge coming to the plate, it was the guy who was 0 for 22.

David Price, the Bosox pitcher who had little in the tank last night--he had already allowed three home runs and was down 6-0--threw a pitch to Higashioka, and wouldn't you know, as announcer John Sterling often says, you can't figure out baseball.

Higashioka swung at the pitch, and bat met ball--it carried down the left field line, hugged the line and went into the seats barely fair.

The catcher had his first hit, his first home run, and the sell-out crowd absolutely went wild.

The call from Sterling, who is known to characterize players who hit homers with oftentimes mildly poetic praise--was one of his best of all time due to its simplicity.

He could not have prepared for Higashioka to hit such a blast, and again, this wasn't Judge--who hit his own homer earlier in the game--or even Aaron Hicks, who hit three of them in this contest.

Sterling simply said, "Yes, Higa-shioka ... the home run strokah!"

You can witness all of this at https://www.mlb.com/cut4/john-sterlings-call-of-kyle-higashiokas-first-home-run/c-283870542

And besides that, when Higashioka came back to the dugout after rounding the bases, he was met with one of the all-time best silent treatments.

It appeared that no one was paying attention in the dugout, it was lifeless as can be as he walked down the steps to get his catching gear for the next inning.

But after a couple of seconds, the team seemingly came out of nowhere, jumping all over him, giving him high fives and showing how happy they were for the catcher.

He now joins some elite company as one of group of players to have his first major league hit be a home run, including Judge, who happened to do it in his first major league at bat two years ago.

For Higashioka, it will be a moment he can tell his grandkids about.

How many other opportunities he will get is questionable.

Sanchez is scheduled to be ready to return in two or three weeks, and unless there is a setback--or something happens to Romine--Higashioka will be going back to the minors, and we might not see him again for a while in a New York Yankees uniform.

But whatever the case, he got a major monkey off his back with his blast, and it was a fun moment in the game for the Bronx Bombers, who have hit 137 homers thus far, the most in baseball at this point in the season.

The fans also loved it, and now the name Kyle Higashioka will be part of a trivia question--what Yankees homered for their first major league hit?--and another trivia question--what players homered for their first major league hit?

Zip for 22? Few will remember that.