Giancarlo Stanton’s goggles were tightly secured, a bottle of champagne tightly clutched in each of his hands. His hair was soaked, his shirt sopping up the rest of what fell from the seemingly never-ending fountain falling upon his head.
After 1,144 regular-season games, and eight largely hopeless seasons in Miami, baseball had never been better. Now, the reigning NL MVP will truly discover what it’s like to play in the postseason.
After taking longer to make his playoff debut than all but one active player in the majors, Stanton broke out in the game he had waited his entire career to play, blasting a mammoth home run in the Yankees’ 7-2 wild-card victory over the Athletics on Wednesday night in The Bronx.