More than anything, Scott Eddy remembers the sound, an unmistakable crack that accompanied the final days of the summer of 2007 inside Jamestown’s Diethrick Park.
No matter where he was in the ballpark, Eddy knew when the prized 17-year-old prospect was taking his turn during batting practice: The thump of the ball off his bat was “such a different deal.”
One day, the Class A Jamestown Jammers actually had to halt their pregame hitting routine. The wunderkind and fellow top prospect Matt Dominguez had hit so many over the fence between them that the ball boys literally had to go out for more balls because they had run out.
The 17-year-old’s name? Giancarlo Stanton, then known simply as Mike.
“There were a lot of things going on at the ballpark everyday, and a lot of things to get done before each game,” said Eddy, then the Jammers’ director of media relations, “but you made sure you stopped and watched those guys take BP because it was that impressive.
“Mike, especially, was just on an absolute other level. He would hit balls out and they’d still be rising on their way out of the ballpark. He didn’t hit any wall-scrapers. When he hit them, they were absolute no-doubters.”
These days, of course, Stanton is one of the biggest sluggers – and one of the most notable players – in Major League Baseball.
In November 2014, he signed a 13-year, $325 million extension with the Miami Marlins, the most lucrative contract in sports history. Last December, he was traded to the New York Yankees, one of only two players in Major League annals to be dealt after a 50-home run season.
In August of 2007, however, he was merely a kid living out of two duffel bags – a golden goose who had just received a $475,000 signing bonus after being taken by the Marlins in the second round (No. 76 overall) of the MLB Draft, to be sure – but a kid nonetheless.
And his first real taste of professional baseball came 45 minutes down I-86 West in Jamestown.
After completing a short stint in the Gulf Coast League, essentially an extension of spring training, each of the Marlins’ top three picks that year – the first-rounder Dominguez, Stanton and third-rounder Jameson Smith – was called up for the final two weeks of the New York-Penn League campaign. Since their stay would be short, they were housed at the Jamestown-Falconer Red Roof Inn.
With such a small operations staff, Eddy became a kind of personal chauffeur to one of the game’s next biggest stars.
“I’m taking time out of my schedule to not only take them to and from the hotel and ballpark,” said Eddy, who had just begun his senior year at St. Bonaventure, “but … I remember taking those guys to the laundromat at least time one time. One time after practice, they wanted to go get something to eat that wasn’t ballpark sandwiches, so I took them down to the Burger King in Falconer.
“Little things like that encompassed the minor league experience that people don’t think about. It definitely wouldn’t have anything to do with what his life is like now playing for the Yankees and all the money he’s making.”
His time in Jamestown was anything but spectacular: Stanton hit a measly .067 (2-for-30) with 15 strikeouts in nine games with the Jammers.
But team officials, and the few that had come out to watch him, knew they were witnessing a special talent. And despite those early struggles, he made sure to leave his mark in Western New York.
Early in his first home game, he fell behind 0-1 before waving badly at two curve balls to end the at-bat with a strikeout. Already some were wondering: This is the supposed stud the Marlins spent all that money on?
“So everybody kind of left,” said George Sisson, the current JCC men’s basketball coach, who then served as the Jammers’ assistant general manager. “By the time he got back up in the sixth or seventh inning, he hit a shot off the scoreboard hard enough that it bounces and comes all the way back into play.
“There was a big argument – the visiting manager wanted it to be off the wall. Of course, everybody else knew it hit the scoreboard. It was an absolute shot. It got out in, like, less than a second.”
Stanton, a second-round bonus baby, who wouldn’t begin going by his real name, Giancarlo, until 2012, spurned an agreement to play baseball at Tulane and football offers from UCLA, UNLV and USC to begin his pro baseball career.
As Sisson noted, he could easily have viewed his situation in Jamestown with disdain. But he didn’t take that attitude, Eddy recalled.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
“A guy like that you’d figure would have a pretty big ego about them,” said Eddy, now St. Bonaventure’s director of athletics communications, “and I don’t remember anything about that with Mike.
“He was definitely more reserved than the other two guys, but really just a humble kid, a nice kid, and somebody who appreciated you doing things for him. I remember him thanking me multiple times for the rides. They knew that I was in college and had a lot on my plate, too.”
Added Sisson: “He was cordial, polite and kind, a true gentleman of a young man.”
Eleven years later, Stanton is punishing baseballs to an almost shocking degree. A year ago, the reigning National League MVP hit 59 home runs, the most at the MLB level in 16 years.
On Wednesday, he hit a patented laser-shot in a 3-0, 13-inning win over the Blue Jays; fittingly, it set the new mark for highest exit velocity on a home run this season at 119 miles per hour.
Those words, “exit velocity,” have become regularly associated with the four-time all-star.
And the sound that comes with it? Eddy remembers it well.
“With some guys, they talk about the ball sounding different coming off their bat,” he said, “and it really is true when you talk about Mike, because there was a different sound when he made contact.
“When he hit the ball, you didn’t have to be right there to know that it was him during BP. You heard the sound and you thought, ‘Oh, Mike must be up,’ because it was such a different deal.’”
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
