By Morris Phillips
WASHINGTON D.C. — If you’re Hunter Greene, the second overall pick in the 2017 MLB Draft, and the youngest player invited to the SiriusXm All-Star Futures Game, you too can be humbled.
When Luis Alex Basabe got hold of Hunter Greene’s 102 mph fastball at the knees, the ball landed in the centerfield bleachers, 438 feet from the plate.
“102, inside and he turned on it. Tip my cap to that guy,” Greene said.
“They told me the pitch was 102, but I just put the bat on the ball,” Basabe said. “I’m not surprised. I know I can hit it, but you have to do everything perfect.”
What’s crazy is the Greene/Basabe baseball science experiment played out not just once, but several times on Sunday at Nationals Park. Pitches thrown at ridiculous speeds sent richocheting throughout the park by hitters possessing other-worldly hand-eye coordination. All of them, 18 to 20 years old.
They don’t call it the Futures Game for nothing.
And if the future of big league baseball is a lot faster than the present, it also promises to have decidedly heavier, African-American presence as well.
Eight of the 25 players on the USA roster were African-American, and they all showed out on Sunday. Greene (CIN) and Justus Sheffield (NYY) threw smoke. Jo Adell (LAA), Buddy Reed (SDP) and Taylor Trammell (CIN) manned an all African-American outfield in the game’s final innings, and Trammell captured the game’s MVP after hitting a majestic home run, and a triple laced with comedy.
LaTroy Hawkins, the retired left-handed reliever who enjoyed an obscenely, lengthy 21-year, big-league career was asked if the African-American revival revealed at the Futures Game was overstated. Currently, only seven percent of Major Leaguers are African-American, down drastically from the apex in the mid 70’s (27 percent).
“You won’t be overstating it until we get back into the 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 percentile like it was in the 70’s and 80’s. Then you might be overstating it. Major league baseball’s doing a lot of great things trying to get African-Americans back in the game, and a lot of these guys are products of that,” said Hawkins, who served as the pitching coach for the USA team.
Trammell, having already homered in the sixth, thought he got another one over the centerfield wall in the eighth. But the ball caroomed off the slanted wall with centerfielder Leody Taveras (TEX) in hot pursuit. But Trammell didn’t see the ball stay in the park as he was interacting with his teammates in the dugout as he approached first base in his home run trot. When Trammell realized the path of the ball, he picked it up and cruised into third base.
“Threw up the deuces, and he looked up and still got a triple,” Reed joked.
“When it hit the wall and came back, I saw the center fielder running, and I was like, ‘Oh, this can’t be happening.’ I took it as a good sport. It’s fine. Like I said, I’m not going to hear the end of it.”
Of the 10 extra-base hits (eight home runs) in the game, four were smacked by African-Americans, including a majestic, turn-and-watch shot hit by Ke’Bryan Hayes (PIT), the son of former major leaguer Charlie Hayes.
“He used to always tell me when I was seven, eight years old there’s some kid in the Dominican Republic or something hitting right now. So any chance you get, you need to be working on baseball,” Hayes said, when asked what advice he received from his father.
NOTES: Heliot Ramos, the Giants’ top-rated prospect currently playing at Single A-Augusta, got a base hit in his one Futures Game at-bat. Ramos, the second-youngest member of the World roster, pinch-hit in the seventh inning and singled off Shaun Anderson, also a Giants’ prospect. Anderson, sporting the old-school mullett cut, was acquired in the deal that sent third baseman Eduardo Nunez to the Red Sox in 2017.
Jesus Luzardo, a top prospect for the A’s currently playing for Double A Midland in the Texas League, was the starting pitcher for the World team. Luzardo pitched two innings, surrendering three hits and a run while striking out two.
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