Rob Maaddi, FISM News
Giancarlo Stanton would go to Dodger Stadium and watch baseball games from seats in the left-field stands as a young kid growing up in the Los Angeles area.
On Tuesday night in the All-Star Game, he started in left field and slammed a two-run homer into the left-field pavilion to lead the American League to a 3-2 victory over the National League. The win also marked the ninth victory in a row for the American League which has dominated the Midsummer Classic in recent memory, winning 21 of the last 25 contests.
Stanton walked away with the Most Valuable Player Award following a homecoming made for movies.
“My Pops took me to my first Dodger game, showed me how to have love for this game and now we’re here,” Stanton told reporters after the game. “Look at us, it’s just incredible.”
Playing in his fifth All-Star game and first since 2017, the New York Yankees slugger drove a pitch from Dodgers right-hander Tony Gonsolin 457 feet to tie the game at 2-2 in the fourth inning. Byron Buxton followed with a solo homer and neither team scored the rest of the way.
Stanton had 50 family members and friends in attendance among the sellout crowd of 52,518. He received a glass bat engraved with his name as the MVP from former Dodgers star Steve Garvey and tennis legend Billie Jean King, who is part of the Dodgers ownership group.
“It hasn’t fully sank in,” Stanton said. “It’s going to be an amazing memory for all of our lives.”
Dodger’s lefty Clayton Kershaw made his first career start in an All-Star game in front of the hometown crowd and allowed a single to Angel’s star Shohei Ohtani on the first pitch. But Kershaw picked him off at first base.
“Honestly, I didn’t quite know what to throw yet. Sometimes I throw over there for a second to be convicted with the pitch,” Kershaw said. “I wasn’t trying to pick him off. I was trying to delay the game for a bit, but it worked out.”
After throwing a scoreless inning, Kershaw’s news conference produced a heartwarming moment when 10-year-old Blake Grice was invited to share a story with the three-time Cy Young Award winner.
Grice walked up to the table after Kershaw returned to his seat and told him that he was his grandfather’s favorite player and meeting him checked an item off his late grandpa’s bucket list. The young boy from Denver began crying and Kershaw walked over to give him a hug.
“Your granddad sounded like an awesome guy,” Kershaw said. “Thanks for coming up. That took a lot of courage, man. That was awesome.”
Kershaw also posed for pictures and drew laughter in the room when he asked Blake: “Do you have a parent here or anything?”
For Kershaw, it was an emotional night all the way around.
“I tried to take a minute at the beginning to take it all in and look around, which I usually never do,” Kershaw said. “Being here at Dodger Stadium, a place where I’ve been now for 15 years, and to get to do something like this with the best in the world, is really fun. And it was also really personal for me and my family, everybody. I’m excited it’s over.”
Long known for his dominant pitching, Kershaw derives his strength from his Christian faith.
“I feel like Jesus is the only true way to Heaven,” Kershaw told Faith On The Field Show. “There’s a lot of other things that people believe in and you’re supposed to love everybody. You’re not supposed to convert anybody, that’s God’s job. But at the same time you can be His disciple, you can live for Him and when people ask you why you are living for Him, you can show them why.”
Kershaw also strongly believes in giving back to others as part of his daily focus.
“Using God’s platform, we don’t think of it as philanthropy, but more stewardship,” he said. “Whatever God has given us, we’re just a vessel for it. We don’t own anything that we have, it’s all a gift from God, so just trying to be good stewards to what He has given us.”