When a baseball player is 6 years old, or 9, or 12, they dream of one day doing something spectacular in the major leagues.
Maybe the dream is part of a sandlot-style game, played in the backyard. Maybe it happens as a means of counting sheep to fall asleep. Maybe it’s a daydream in the middle of math class, wishing to put numbers to use on the baseball diamond rather than on a sheet of paper.
Regardless, the dreams are there. Baseball is a game of romance, of hopes, of the idea that anything is possible, and of the concept that each day, when players take the field, you never quite know what you’re going to see.
Some of those dreams, for the luckiest ballplayers out there, come true.
But then there are the moments you can’t dream, because they’re too crazy to even imagine.
That’s the day Brayan Rocchio lived for the Cleveland Guardians on Friday. It couldn’t have been a dream. It was so crazy that it had to be real.
Brayan Rocchio Makes Home Run History
The Detroit Tigers were taking on the Guardians in Game 1 of a doubleheader, and early on, it looked like it’d be all Detroit.
The Tigers stormed out to leads of 3-0 and then 6-1. They were running away with it.
But after the Guardians got within 6-2, they loaded the bases for Rocchio.
That’s when he started his dream night. Yeah, you can dream of an MLB grand slam, that’s fair, and that’s what Rocchio delivered to tie the game 6-6.
No more runs were scored from that point on until the bottom of the ninth inning, when Rocchio stepped to the plate with the bases empty.
And in a season when Rocchio has shown off an incredible clutch gene again and again, he delivered once more. A walk-off bomb, a mob scene at home plate, an incredible exclamation point to end it.
Grand Slam and Walk-Off Homer in Same Game
This is the part you wouldn’t even dream.
Maybe, if you’ve got a flare for the dramatic, you imagine that your future MLB walk-off home run also happens to be a grand slam.
But to hit a grand slam earlier in the game, and then hit a walk-off blast over the fence too? That’s insane, isn’t it?
Well, Rocchio is the sixth player to ever do it in MLB history, according to the Associated Press. Given that they’ve been playing Major League Baseball for a century and a half, that’s quite the short list to be on.
The other five, via the AP: “George Kelly of the New York Giants (June 14, 1924); Hank Greenberg of Detroit (Aug. 19, 1938); Minnie Minoso of the Chicago White Sox (April 19, 1960); Otto Velez of the Toronto Blue Jays (May 4, 1980); and Jack Clark of the Boston Red Sox (July 31, 1991).”
Rocchio shared one word to sum up his performance afterward, telling reporters that he felt his game had been “impressive.”
Yeah, and then some.
“What a cool day for him,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt added to reporters.
There was a second game of a doubleheader to play, but odds were, no one would quite remember that one as much.
Because in the opening game the Guardians played on Friday, Rocchio put together a performance even a daydreaming young ballplayer wouldn’t dare to imagine. It was too good to be a dream — it had to be true.
Guardians’ Brayan Rocchio Makes Astounding Home Run History