Former Red Bank Catholic standout Ryan Kalish continued his incandescent debut week in the majors last night by getting his first home run against the New York Yankees, at Yankee Stadium, for the Boston Red Sox.
Kalish, who grew up in Shrewsbury, had struck out on three pitches each in his first two at-bats. But in the sixth inning, with one on, the left-hander drove the first pitch over the fence in right-center field.
The Bosox website has video of the shot, with the announcer saying, as Kalish is congratulated by his teammates, “Kalish took a low fastball and just golfed this thing on a line out of Yankee Stadium, into that Yankee bullpen.”
Shrewsbury Mayor Terel Cooperhouse, whose family is close to the Kalishes, was in the stands, and today called the moment, “just very, very special. Extremely special.”
He said Yankees fans, watching him and his children applaud Kalish’s play, asked if they were related. When Cooperhouse told them about their friendship, “the Yankees fans started to root for him a little bit, too. Like, ‘Let’s root for the kid.'”
Cooperhouse tells redbankgreen he visited the Kalish family at home this morning, “and that’s when the tears of joy came. The tears were today.”
From the Hartford Courant:
So how do you think he felt when he drove Vazquez’s low two-seam fastball into the Yankees’ bullpen in the sixth inning for his first career home run? How do you think it felt when, after Alex Rodriguez had cut the Sox lead to one, Kalish followed Mike Lowell‘s single with his two-run shot?
“It was wild,” Kalish said.
More than wild.
“I said to myself, ‘Is this real?'” Kalish said. “For a second, it felt unreal.”
He was relieved the ball was retrieved. You never know with home runs. A Yankees reliever, not knowing the circumstances, could have innocently thrown the ball to a fan.
“I’m giving it to my dad,” he said. “This is really, really special.”
