Los Angeles, California. I always find it interesting that one of the things that baseball fans enjoy big time, is something that is not a baseball game. It is the MLB Home Run Derby.
This year’s event gave this packed Dodger Stadium all and more than these fans expected. The over-the-top introductions of the participants with smoke, 30-foot flames, and an Air Force B-52 fly-over got them going.
But Albert Pujols, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and winner of the Latino Sports MVP award nine years in a row from 2003 to 2011, was what brought the place to a frenzy. The 42-year-old Cardinal comes into this year’s Home Run Derby as the active leader with 685 career homers, and just like in St. Louis, he has become a fan favorite in the LA area having played for both the LA Angeles and the Dodgers.
📸 Photo Credit: Bill Menzel/ Latino Sports
But it was the young Mariner Julio Rodríguez, from Loma de Cabrera, Dominican Republic who got things rolling as he pounded out 32 bombs to lead off round 1.
Pujols hit 13 dingers that were followed by a scene around home plate when the entire NL squad came out and surrounded Albert when he was done and before Kyle Schwarber began. Everyone thought that Pujols was done, and it was a very emotional scene.
But surprise, surprise, surprise. Schwarber just barely tied Albert with 1 second on the clock, and when Pujols put seven in the seats Schwarber couldn’t catch him in the 1-minute hit-off. Where else but Hollywood could this happen? Like it was scripted.
When Alonso went down to Rodríguez in round 2, it meant the young phenomenon would be in the finals. But then Pujols’s storybook ending came to an end when Juan Soto, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, finished him off. Setting an all-Latino final between Rodríguez and Soto.
Soto went on to win the final and was crowned the 2022 MLB HR Derby winner. But it was Rodríguez who put on an amazing show from the first pitch to the end. His 32 homers in round one were the 4th best in any round in the history of the Derby. He ended up blowing everyone away with 81 bombs. His star is rising very fast.
📸 Photo Credit: Bill Menzel/ Latino Sports
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