JUPITER, Fla. • He runs the bases like he’s trying to stretch every single into a quintuple.
And there was Harrison Bader, a spring training ago, blitzing basepaths after drilling a pitch to left-center, his dad’s heart beating seemingly in sync with his son’s footsteps.
“(Shoot)!” Louis Bader suddenly muttered. “He’s going to be out.”
See, the Cardinals were at the Red Sox’s spring stadium, a Fenway replica, so the ball pinballed off the monster, giving the center fielder a chance to throw this kid out at second.
“But the throw was slightly to the right-field side of second base, and he made this incredible hook slide to the third-base side of the bag,” recalled Louis Bader, who was at the game in Fort Myers, Fla.