Rocky Gale is 29 years old. He has been in San Diego’s minor-league system since 2010, and he has spent almost all of that time in Triple-A. Other than a very brief showing as a September call-up in 2015—eleven games, only one of which he got to play more than three innings, with ten plate appearances and one hit—he had no major-league experience until tonight. His legal name is Rocky, really. (Middle name Michael.)
In his first trip to the plate tonight, he hit his first major-league home run. It hit the second deck, it tied the Padres’ single-season team home run record (that was number 177), and it made him very happy.
May we all be able to feel something so pure someday.