Awesome Moment Alert: Julio Rodriguez Obliterated His First Career Home Run And Made 2 Fans For Life After He Traded Them Signed Gear For The HR Ball
450 feet for your first ever big league homer, not too bad! Julio Rodriguez has struggled at the plate this season so far but he finally got himself on the board in bombs with this absolute no-doubter in Miami. Picture perfect bomb too, low and in, absolutely smoked it, left center into that weird little cave out there. Nonetheless, awesome to see the power come to J-Rod and hopefully that gets him rolling. But the best part wasn't really the home run, it's that he was able to get the home run ball back by 2 young fans.
He gave them a signed ball and bat in exchange for his first career home run ball, pretty cool moment for these young fans who no doubt will always be J-Rod fans. It's cool to see him interact with them and talk to them instead of acting like a bum and just asking for the ball back. He thanked them a few times for giving the ball back, thought that was pretty wholesome. They didn't have to give it back, but they chose to, and he rewarded them with some cool signed stuff. These kids are going to be smiling ear-to-ear for the next few days, the coolest kids in their middle school tomorrow for sure. I do love seeing stuff like this, it's exactly how you grow the game. It also just dawned on me that J-Rod is still a kid himself, he's probably only like 10 years older than these kids.
Could the kids have shook him down and gotten some more stuff? Signed hat, batting gloves, tickets to a future game, probably. But this isn't the chance to be greedy and try to shake him down. Pretty cool that they were very open to giving him the ball back. It's a win-win for everyone, the kids get some cool signed stuff, J-Rod gets his first homer ball back, everyone goes home happy. Mariners got a good one, he seems like a good egg. Stuff like this makes it very easy to root for him.
PS. How savage would it have been if the kid switched the ball before giving it to Rodriguez. What if he had a plant ball and made the move and made off with the signed ball, signed bat, AND Julio's first official home run ball. Savage.