My MLB Debut

Okay guys, so today we're checking out my Major League debut. September 1st of 2008. I got the call the day before this game. I just flew in this morning of the game with my buddy Wade LeBlanc. We got called up on the same day. Flew down to LA. I'm in the lineup. I find out when I get there. Greg Maddux is on the mound playing against the Dodgers. Manny Ramirez, Nombark Garcia-Power. All my favorite players of all time. So let's check it out. Live from Dodgers Stadium, FSN Prime Ticket presents the Dodgers as they take on the San Diego Padres. Hi everybody and a very pleasant good evening to you wherever you may be. Dodgers and Padres opening up a three-game series. So the first thing we got Vince Scully here. One of the great voices, great announcers of all time. So I got to listen to him call a lot of my strikeouts and actually I didn't strike out too much but being able to make my debut and have it announced by him is pretty cool. Even though you'll see in a little bit he kind of roasts me a little bit later in the game. So let's fast forward here a little bit. There's my boy Manny right there. So Manny had gotten traded over to the Dodgers and he was absolutely just destroying baseballs. He hit a home run like every time we played him. It was ridiculous. All right so we're 53-83. Not very good. Dodgers not playing great either but they're in the hunt. Look at Manny. 8 for 10. Two homers against Arizona. He's hitting over 400 in the month. He was just an absolute freak. The greatest hitter that I ever saw while I was playing in the big leagues. Just every ball he swung at he hit an absolute rocket. And here we got Maddox on the mound. So it's actually weird. I wasn't really nervous at all. I was actually kind of excited that he was throwing because I knew he wasn't going to be throwing like 97 miles an hour. All right so here we go. First this field is unbelievable. The stadium. The playing surface is just ridiculous and just a really cool stadium. The loudest stadium I ever played at in my life. He's a pretty good manager. Another really good player with Mattingly over there and Torrey. So that's pretty cool. Adrian Gonzalez. It's cleanup at first base. Chase Hedley is in left field. Will Venable is in center. It's Nick Hundley behind the plate. Matt Antonelli at second base and big Chris Young on the mound. On the mound for the Dodgers. Greg Maddox in the old story. If you know Maddox you could write a book. A four-time Cy Young award winner. 17 gold gloves. In fact in his career he has beaten San Diego, his former club, at the start of the year. He's beaten San Diego 24 times losing to them only 15. The fellows who really tormented the Padres. You go back to Tom Seaver. He beat them 33 times. All right so we're going to fast forward here for a minute. Giles leads off with a single. I don't hit until later in the game. Nice start here. First and second. All right so we get a run. We're up 1-0. Here's the Dodgers lineup. Russell Martin, Ethier, Manny Ramirez, Loney, Kemp, Blake, DeWitt, Baroah and Maddox on the mound. So this is my first action right here. I didn't hit in the top of the first and so now bottom of the first. I'm out in the field and I'm pretty nervous. Not gonna lie. And so here we go. So after that play right there I was pretty nervous on that play. I'm not gonna lie. And I'm happy that I got a ground ball out of the way right away because it kind of put my nerves at ease. And it's funny watching this play because when I was in the game I remember this being in my mind like a rocket. But it really isn't a rocket looking at it here. I have to move to my right a little bit. But again I feel that thing. I look down. I was like oh thank god it's in my glove. Throw to first. Thank god I threw it to first. Now I'm walking back like I've done this a million times even though I'm like thank god. All right so Nick Conley, my boy Hundo lines out and now I'm gonna get my first at bat of my major league career. Let's listen to Vince Kelly call it. Anyway young Nick has arrived. Hit the ball hard. Lines out to center. One down. Matt Antonelli takes a strike. Young's second baseman. And the strike one pitch on the way. And that's a little low on the way. Antonelli is from Peabody or Peabody, Massachusetts. Went to school at Wake Forest. He was a first round pick just two years ago and making his major league debut tonight. The 1-1 pitch is swung on and that's a base hit. How do you like that? So Matt Antonelli just called up from double A San Antonio and promptly bangs one into center for a base hit. They're gonna get the ball and get it back into the safety of the dugout. So Matt Antonelli can tell the grandkids oh yeah Greg Maddox is in the Hall of Fame. And a base hit against him first time out. Well he has company. The Padres have four hits for a run. So the first thing is I'm not nervous at all. Like zero. It was really strange. It felt like a normal at bat for some reason. I think it's because I got that first ground ball out of the way. But there's a fastball right down the middle that I take. Here's like a little I think like a cutter maybe. A little cutter that's just off the plate. Although let's see that again. I don't know how far off the plate that was. It's close. Maybe a smidge off the plate. That's the good thing about hitting in the major leagues. And so now it's 1-1 and I'm basically my approach against him is middle of the field because I know he can't beat me with anything because he doesn't throw super hard at this point in his career. And so he throws a little two seamer that kind of runs right back over the middle. 86 miles an hour. But it's weird. It felt like it felt slower. Felt like 82 miles an hour. I think just because most guys that you're facing are going to be low you know low 90s I'd say. So I get that hit and now I think I'm Barry Bonds and I was like man that was like really really easy. I am going to get 3,000 hits and I think I got 12. And so here now we put the bunt on and I go into second so hard here. I almost slide over the bag. I'm making sure I'm not getting thrown out. But I am really skinny right here too. I lost so much weight throughout this year. I usually start the season. I started this season off 2008. I started this season off at 223 pounds in spring training. And right now I bet you I'm 187. 190. Somewhere around there. I lost like 30 pounds during the year. I learned later in my career how to keep the weight on but I couldn't do it my first few years. All right let's go find something else that happens. Okay so here's a play where Baro hits like this shallow fly ball and I can't get to it. I don't think it's a bad play on my part. I'm going as hard as I can and I can't catch it. And I don't think Scully was really talking about me just in general. So here's a little pop up right. I'm turning. I'm running. Running. Running. Running. Can't get there. I kind of like half lay out. It just tips off the end of my glove. But Will Venable is coming in hard so it just gets past him. And I gotta play it back because Scully gives a nice, what an embarrassing play. I don't think it was that embarrassing. Let's hear him say it. Matt Antonelli going out. Will Venable coming in. Not only did neither man get the ball but Antonelli compounded by falling in front and going down at the feet of the charging Venable and that just got in the way. And once he went down the ball was between Venable and Antonelli and that allowed Casey to just keep on coming and score. So very early in the evening you find out why the Padres are 30 games under 500. It is two to one Dodgers. All right so let's fast forward because he just basically stabbed me right in the heart. I still don't think it was that horrendous of a play. I mean it just tips off my glove. So now we're starting to snowball here. Here's a little more action. Ground ball to Kuz who usually feels everything. Kind of bobbles it. We get the guy. Greg Maddux comes in and tries to take me out. Comes in pretty hard here. Greg's lucky I'm only weighing 187 and not 223 anymore. And Scully's still bashing on us for not being able to field balls. So they keep showing me here because Vin Scully's still talking about that pop-up and he's saying it went as a double and he can't understand why how it was ever called a double. You're not giving me an error on that. Like it's a pop-up that I'm running as hard as I can with my back to the plate. Now you might say I guess you could say maybe I should have had it. I don't think it's an easy play. I've never watched this game before so I've never realized how much he's bashing on me the entire inning. And now you've got the wrong man up. Manny Ramirez who literally I think he hit 800 against us this month. And there goes another one. Just every ball he hits is a rocket shot. Okay so here's my second at-bat. I mean a lot of bugs out here or something. I don't remember but everybody is like swatting things the entire game. Oh god. Maybe the most hittable pitch of my life right there. 85 right down the middle and I take it. I should have come out of my shoes and hit that thing. There's a little change up so I'm back 1-1 again and I'm literally the same approach. I'm sitting something middle and I've kind of geared myself up for like that mid to low kind of 80s. He threw me another change up and I'm a little bit in front. I don't know if you guys can hear it. He's talking about how Dodgers drafted me and now I decided not to sign with them. All right so a little routine ground ball. It got me pulling the ball when I should be probably driving this like I did in my first at-bat. So when I get one and two now I'm really I'm thinking right center field. That's my approach but that ball's like middle away and I pull it. I just get out in front a little bit right there. I do that a lot in my on my big league during my big league time just being a little out front and cutting across the zone a little bit more than I want. All right so here's my third at-bat leading off. They've taken Maddox out. Hung Chi Kuo. I don't remember this at-bat at all so I'm just going to kind of watch it with you guys. So 1-0 fastball just away and down missed. Now I'm sitting fastball. I'm still trying to hit something up the middle. That was my pitch right there and I missed it but at least I was a little bit more aggressive. It's kind of passive my first two at-bats. I clearly did not hit that up the good part of the bat because I checked my bat there to see if it's broken. Guy's got a good season going for him. Let me watch that again. I know they're setting up away. It's close. I don't know. I guess I'm a rookie. Oh Vin Scully's talking about the damn catch again that I didn't make. Geez the guy wouldn't stop it. That's what you get. Look at how mad he is. That's what you get for calling that other pitch a strike on me. Why is he so mad? You're an umpire. You're gonna get hit with balls. Hey there's Wade. Can't really see his face but so Wade was pretty much my roommate throughout my 888 career and in spring training. 1-2 let's see what he goes with. 95 just fighting that one off. I probably wasn't thinking fastball right there. I probably thought he was he came fastball into me so I'm probably thinking he's going to go something slower. He throws 95 and I just try to fight it off and get rid of it. Now he's gone fastball in. He's gone kind of fastball away a little bit so I guess he could come fastball in again. There he comes. Yeah I would have come fastball in too. He saw that I struggled to get to it and barely fouled it off before. So it looks like and this usually happens like when a guy gets called up I feel like you want to see if he can hit the fastball in or if he's going to swing at it especially if it's in off the plate. So now they could go slow if they want to. I would think no they're going back fastball in. Yeah so that's the pitch right there they're seeing if I'll swing at that. So clearly their strategy was to to go in. They're doing it over and over again. Now 3-2 he's probably just going to throw a fastball just down the middle and I can't remember I think I might ground out here to short again but I can't remember. 96 guy throws hard. Well back then this was considered really hard now everybody throws 96. So I don't remember this bat at bat at all like zero. Because they're pretty good at bat even though I missed that that 1-0 pitch that I should have hit and probably should have just got a hit there. I'm battling pretty good they're going fastball in again. Yeah they got me. That was a nice pitch right there. Let's see where that's located. That ball is like right on the black pretty much. 95 on the black and I just can't get to it. So if I just hit that I mean literally like that's the thing in the major leagues like that 1-0 pitch I had a hit. I didn't hit that pitch and then I didn't really get a pitch to hit after that and even though like one of those two strike pitches wasn't a great pitch I'm 1-2 and so it just gets difficult to hit with two strikes and at any level never mind the major leagues. So now here's my boy Nomar Garcia Parra who I say Manny Ramirez was my favorite player of all time but really like Nomar when he was with the Red Sox I mean I was a kid and I was a shortstop and so like Nomar was pretty much my guy and to be able to play against Nomar and against Manny in my debut was unbelievable and so we get here in the bottom of the eighth and Nomar is pinch hitting and he hits this pop-up right here that I'm about to catch. I can remember this vividly. So he hits this pop-up and so I go over here to catch the ball I'm coming in and I'm literally right now thinking like Nomar just hit me a pop-up like I need to keep this ball and I need to go after the game and ask him if he'll sign it for me but then like as I'm running in I have like this other little person on my shoulder being like dude you're in the major leagues just throw the ball in the stands and give it to somebody and then my other voice is like no no keep the ball man get an autograph he's your favorite player of all time. So the voice that was telling me to throw in the stands ended up winning so I throw the thing in the stands and I'm like dude I'm a major league player like I can't be freaking being a fan out here and like the second I threw it into the stands the other voice was like you idiot what are you doing and then I got pissed that I threw it in the stands. All right so bottom of the ninth two outs and I get my last at bat here facing Jonathan Broxton. I'm one for three Broxton throws close to a hundred pretty much a hundred and so at this time I think he was still one of the better closers in the league and right now I'm saying I've got to get this thing ready early and I think later later in the maybe next series I hit a double off him down the line but this at bat I'm thinking dead red fastball get it ready and freaking get the bad head out and so that's why I hacked their first pitch and very rarely did I swing first pitch in my career but you know when you're facing a guy that's going to be high 90s I'm not going to be up there sitting around waiting so foul that thing off and now with this pitch right here I'm thinking same thing like I'm not going to sit breaking ball or anything like that I'm going to sit fastball he throws me a breaking ball I'll just take it there it is all right so 1-1 now 5-2 game I'm definitely sitting fastball again and I hit a soft ground ball and that's the game I know I got on SportsCenter that night for that because I had a lot of people call me and say hey I just I saw you grounded out against Jonathan Broxton tonight congrats so that was it that was my first game one for four not really that many good at bats the first at bat obviously was a good one and then I you know I kind of roll over to short I pop out and I tough at bat fastball in and then that one right there just a soft ground ball to shortstop for a one for four night so that's it I'll see what other games I got on here see if I do anything else worthwhile I'll throw it up but thank you for watching subscribe to the channel hey there I am again everyone's giving me a high five oh wow I didn't realize that I don't remember that at all actually let me go back here and watch this again I don't obviously I didn't watch this game but Buddy Black's the best Wally Joyner was a good guy too I didn't really do anything well but I mean I guess I made my debut and got a hit so you got to give me a pat on the butt all right now that's all I got subscribe the channel share with all your friends give it a thumbs up all that good stuff I appreciate you watching and we'll talk to you later