Atlanta CNN —
The first thing you notice when a home run ball starts to fly in your direction is that all your preconceived notions of how you’d react in that moment are pretty much wrong.
I played baseball my entire childhood. My greatest skill was that I wasn’t afraid of the ball and was happy to use my body to knock it down however I could. As I’ve moved nearly 20 years past my playing days, I assumed the instinct to go after the ball would still be there.
But after Monday night’s 2025 T-Mobile Home Run Derby, I can report that the stories you tell yourself are all pretty much wrong.
Instead, the first thought that goes through your head is simple: “Oh no.”
I was lucky enough to be in attendance at Truist Park in Atlanta on Monday night for the derby, one of the sport’s signature events and one of my favorite moments of the sporting year. What I didn’t anticipate until I set foot inside the stadium is that I might be directly in the launch path of some missiles from baseball’s best sluggers.
When I found my assigned seat in the press area, the realization hit me that I might be more involved in the night’s action that I originally expected. The auxiliary press box at this gorgeous, eight-year-old park is set in what’s called the Hank Aaron Terrance – a group space that hangs over the left field grandstand with climate-controlled seating and large glass windows to watch the game.
My seat was … just on the other side of those windows, 450-plus feet away from home plate along the rail in the top row of the outdoor section of the terrace. That’s firmly in homer territory for the big boppers who were at the plate.
Junior Caminero, the Tampa Bay Ray who fell in the finals to derby champion Cal Raleigh, stepped to the plate in the opening round and made it immediately clear that he would be peppering us with baseballs all night long.
Caminero’s 19th home run of the first round was the moment all my pretension was stripped away. He crushed it – it left his bat at 117 miles per hour, the third hardest hit ball of the night – and it was heading right at me and my colleague, Kevin Dotson.
As the ball flew through the night – a hot, humid, windless evening that made for perfect home run conditions – my first thought was to close my laptop so the ball wouldn’t break the screen.
My second was to get out of the way.
ESPN’s cameras captured my shame, leaning at a 45-degree angle into Kevin as the ball landed just a few feet below us, smacking into the wall and ending up in the hands of a fellow reporter who was overjoyed with his find.
I laughed, the only feeling that could come with the adrenaline pumping and the knowledge that I had just exposed why I made it to high school varsity ball and no further. Yeah, I never used to be afraid of the ball, but I never played against guys like this!
From there, I made some adjustments. When right-handed batters came up, I decided to stand behind my chair because I felt a little more athletically prepared for a projectile flying at me at more than 100 miles per hour. I preemptively tipped my laptop down for those moments.
And when Raleigh, the eventual champion stepped up, I felt more ready. And then the switch-hitting catcher, who has a league-leading 38 home runs after an incredible first half, sent one out our way.
When The Big Dumper hit his ninth home run 457 feet toward our location, I was in no rush to get in front of it. The ball hurtled toward the earth just a couple seats down from me – Kevin gamely jumped for it, I waited to see where it would land. And there it was, rolling along the ground toward me, nearly a tenth of a mile from where Raleigh had struck it.
I picked it up and I’m not ashamed to say that I kept it. Signed by Raleigh before he took the field for the derby, the ball became a little symbol of the magic that make sports so special. Holding that ball in my hand, I felt like a little kid on the baseball fields in suburban Detroit again, basking in the glorious moment that the baseball gods had bestowed upon me.
The magic of sports is that they drop your pretensions. They’re the closest thing we have to time travel – a little moment can bring you back to a person you once were in a time that’s long passed and make you feel like the world is as bright and wonderful as it was when you were just a little kid skipping over the white line to take your place in the field.
I texted basically everyone I knew, sending pictures of the ball to people from all stages of my life to try and spread a little of my joy. The only person I couldn’t share it with was my dad, who passed away almost exactly a year ago and was the person who got me into the game and spent hours with me on diamonds around our house, playing catch and throwing batting practice.
It’s hard to imagine ever feeling like a kid again after a parent passes. But that’s the beauty of the games we grew up with. A simple moment can strip away years and years of callus to expose the unbridled joy and enthusiasm that makes being a kid so wonderful.
Fear followed by unmasked joy – that’s what it feels like to have a home run hit in your direction.
