Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images/Kevin Sousa-Imagn Images
St. Louis Cardinals players Joshua Báez and Blaze Jordan
There are good MLB debuts, there are great MLB debuts, and then there is whatever Joshua Báez decided to do at Wrigley Field on Saturday. The 23-year-old apparently skipped the whole “get your feet wet” portion of reaching the majors and went straight to smashing three home runs in his first three at-bats.
Báez became the first player in MLB history to hit three home runs in his big-league debut while helping the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs 8-4. His first swing in the majors produced a 449-foot missile to center field, because apparently a polite single would have been too boring, and he later added homers in the fourth and sixth innings to finish with five RBIs.
Joshua Báez Made History In Somebody Else’s Shoes
Somehow, the three-homer debut is not even the funniest part of this story.
When Báez arrived at Wrigley Field, teammate Bryan Torres noticed the rookie had shown up with dirty cleats and white batting gloves. That was not going to work for a major-league debut, so Torres essentially staged an emergency episode of Queer Eye in the Cardinals clubhouse and started rebuilding the outfit.
Báez needed size 12 cleats. Torres eventually found a clean pair sitting in Blaze Jordan’s locker, added a red belt from a trainer and grabbed batting gloves from José Fermín. There was one small detail: Jordan was downstairs when the shoe acquisition happened, so by the time he heard about it, Báez was already wearing them.
Jordan did not care. In fact, he told Báez before the game to keep the cleats because they were now his debut pair.
That turned out to be one hell of a gift.
Báez stepped in against Cubs starter Matthew Boyd in the first inning and launched a 93.4 mph fastball 449 feet to dead center on the first major-league pitch he ever saw. He then homered on a changeup in the fourth and a slider in the sixth, going center, left and right field while becoming the first player ever to homer three times in his MLB debut.
If Jordan has another pair of these things sitting around, the Cardinals should probably lock them in a safe.
Blaze Jordan Accidentally Made The Hall Of Fame
By Sunday, Cooperstown wanted a piece of the performance. Báez agreed to donate the borrowed cleats to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which created an objectively hilarious situation for Jordan.
His name is still written inside the shoes.
Jordan joked that Báez had managed to get his name into the Hall of Fame too, and he said he hopes it stays there. Not bad for a guy whose contribution to baseball history began with leaving a clean pair of size 12 cleats unattended in his locker.
The performance itself was not completely out of nowhere. Báez entered the majors as the Cardinals’ No. 3 prospect after crushing 34 home runs with 90 RBIs and 21 steals in 103 games at Triple-A Memphis. He clearly had power.
Nobody, however, had ever done this.
Báez waited years to reach the majors, borrowed a teammate’s shoes because his own were too dirty, homered on the first pitch he saw and finished the afternoon with three balls over the fence. Less than 24 hours later, the shoes did not even belong to Jordan or Báez anymore.
They belonged in Cooperstown.
Baseball is ridiculous sometimes.