Joey Gallo is human, which means he had to feel a bit awkward and insecure about the lovefest that was breaking out around Anthony Rizzo. Those are natural human feelings when you are struggling while a colleague working under the exact same conditions is, you know, doing the exact opposite of struggling.
They both came to the Yankees as big-name lefty bats who were going to balance and lengthen the lineup, play some quality defense and appeal to the fans with their quasi-local back stories. Rizzo spent much of his childhood summertime in New Jersey, just like Derek Jeter did. The son of New Yorkers, Gallo grew up worshipping Jeter and also rooting for the Giants and the Knicks.
But while Rizzo from the Cubs spent his first six games and 27 plate appearances hitting home runs and batting .400, Gallo from the Rangers spent his first six games and 27 plate appearances striking out and batting .087 and looking about as lost as a first-time tourist in Times Square.
And then Thursday night in The Bronx happened. A beautiful thing happened, really, with the Seattle Mariners in town. As much as monster contracts have widened the gulf between the star ballplayer and the common customer, they will always have something simple in common — that Little Leaguer’s dream of stepping to the Yankee Stadium plate in a big spot, hearing the crowd chant his name, and then belting a homer that brings down the house and decides the game.
Gallo lived that dream with Seattle holding a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning, this after he ripped a pair of doubles in his first two at-bats. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton hit two-out singles, and then the Yankees’ left fielder dug in against Paul Sewald, a fellow graduate of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, and the brother of Gallo’s best friend. Baseball’s a crazy game.
Gallo took ball one, and then the “Let’s Go Yank-ees” chants morphed into “Jo-ey Gall-o” chants. Sewald’s second pitch was an 82 mph slider, and Gallo launched it sky high into the right-field lights. As the ball flirted with the foul pole, the 27-year-old All-Star walked up the line and craned his neck to the left to apply some body English to help keep it fair. It’s been a long time since anyone’s seen a ball stay up in the air as long as this one did, and to Gallo, it felt like an eternity.
Aaron Boone stepped out of the dugout because he thought this towering shot was going to go. “And it just kept going,” Boone said. Seattle’s Mitch Haniger made a jump for it, but wouldn’t you know it, the damn thing just cleared the F.W. Webb sign at the wall. Gallo pumped his fist. “Once I saw it get out,” he said, “I was obviously overcome with emotion.” Wearing lucky No. 13, Gallo had turned a 3-2 deficit into a 5-3 lead with one swing of the bat, and his trip around the bases was the sweetest of joyrides.
Who cares that the ball traveled only 331 feet, or that a buddy texted him afterward, “That’s an F9 in Texas.” Thank heavens for that ridiculously short porch in right. “We’re not in Texas anymore,” Gallo said.
After he crossed the plate, Gallo exchanged leaping forearm smashes with Stanton and Judge. He was mobbed in the dugout, and then summoned to the dugout rail by the fans, who were thanked with a quick wave.
As he stood in the outfield in the eighth, the fans still chanting his name, Gallo thought to himself, “The 10-year-old me would be crying right now and not believing what was going on.” He needed to take a step back and gather himself. “I’m in Yankee Stadium getting a curtain call from Yankee fans,” he said. “It’s crazy for me.”
On cue, Aroldis Chapman gave everyone a not-so-mild heart attack in the ninth, at the end of a long day in The Bronx that began with the news of Gary Sanchez becoming the latest Yankee sidelined by COVID-19. But nothing was going to steal Joey Gallo’s joy on this night.
Boone would later argue that the former Ranger had been doing good things for the Yanks, playing defense, showing athleticism and grinding hard in his at-bats. But come on. The guy entered the night with two hits and 10 strikeouts as a Yankee, while watching Rizzo become the toast of the town. The Yanks were rolling without Gallo, and now they are rolling with him. He needed this in a big way.
A Yankee who grew up wanting to be Derek Jeter got a taste of what it felt like to be Jeter in Yankee Stadium. Yes, it was a beautiful thing to see.