I'm Coming Home

Warning: This article features a lot of hyperlinks to videos. If it leads down a fun YouTube rabbit hole, you’re welcome. 

I was inspired to write this essay when my friend asked me my favorite ceremony or tradition in sports.

I hadn’t thought about this question much, but when ruminating on the answer I realized there were several possibilities. The significance ranged from the ceremony of a championship team hoisting a title trophy to the jocular tradition of a shaving cream pie during a post-game interview. 

A fan’s experience of a sports game is embedded in its traditions. From stripping out of work clothes into your team’s jersey at 5:01 pm to driving in traffic to eventually be charged $30 for parking; Reminding your eight year old to remove his hat for the National Anthem before making your way to the concourse for your first inning hot dog. 

Of course, fans can also be part of collective traditions. The wave and seventh inning stretch generate a sense of ceremony, uniting everyone in one simultaneous action. 

Regardless of all the great prevailing traditions fans take on from the stands, I like traditions that coalesce the pulse of the grandstand with the field of play - where everyone from players, coaches, patrons, and even vendors can become one. 

My favorite ceremonial moment is one of presentism - the “be here now” approach to processing everything happening all at once.

There’s nothing like watching a prodigious athlete - who made their heroic mark for one team and one city for so long - return to his former stadium for the first time. 

Sometimes, it’s an ovation for a player who while on the team briefly, was an integral part of a championship, like Kawhi Leonard’s return to Toronto after bringing Canada its first NBA Championship. When Tom Brady returned to New England as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer, he received a pregame video tribute and highlights throughout the game. But for these team sports, in which the game’s action doesn’t stop to commemorate an individual, the lore of the moment is lost. 

It’s why of all sports, baseball stands atop as the best stage for these ovations. Baseball is the “individual’s team game” and can freeze a moment in time for an individual.

When a batter is ready to take his turn at bat, the tried-and-true montage that pays tribute to the returning player’s achievements is the amuse-bouche before he gradually walks from the on deck circle in tandem with 50,000 fans rising from their seats to applaud. 

Over the last twenty years of following baseball, I’ve seen some powerful “welcome home” walk ups. The player, who worked his ass off for one organization for over a decade, receives the deserved acknowledgement. The acknowledgement has been pent up, as the ovation masquerades as a yearning for the past. 

It’s in the present that you realize nothing can prepare you for the emotional exchange between player and crowd - the return of the prodigal son to his village. 

The batters handle their emotions differently. Some get choked up like Freddie Freeman in his return to Atlanta. Others handle it more matter-of-factly as did Chase Utley’s return to Philadelphia. 

With respect to my teams, I’ve only experienced one hero’s return that truly tugged at my heartstrings - Mike Piazza. In 2005, Piazza’s knees and back were acting up as is expected for a mid-30s catcher. During the season, the Mets made it public they weren’t going to re-sign him and in the 2006 offseason he joined the Padres. 

That August, he returned to Shea Stadium donning the San Diego uniform. I was 15, watching on television as Mike Piazza stood in the on-deck circle, dropped the weighted fungo bat from his right hand, and with weapon of choice in his left, proceeded to the batter's box. 

Mets fans ascended as Piazza strided closer to the plate, the one over which he displayed his prowess as the best power hitting and most clutch catchers ever. 

The ovation emanated through the television sound system, unlike any ebullience I had heard from a sports game. Considering that smartphones weren’t around, people were likely more present with everyone’s hands free to applaud and everyone’s eyes locked in on Mike. No one was recording a 15 second video for their social media. The only people this moment was meant to be shared with were Mets fans. For seven years in Queens, Piazza had made Mets fans believe in goodness and we were stronger, happier people for it. 

But as much as I love Piazza, his homecoming pales in comparison to that of Albert Pujols. 

When Albert Pujols arrived in an Angels uniform to Busch Stadium in 2018, it had been nearly eight years since he last played in St. Louis. Interleague play didn’t feature annual matchups between teams as it does now, so the absence of an AL team visiting an NL team was standard. 

While Pujols still hit for power, nagging injuries prevented him from replicating his .326 batting average accumulated in St. Louis. He was clearly a humbled player entering the second act of his career. With each year passing since Pujols’ departure from The Lou, there could have been a growing ambivalence towards his return. Would he ever reappear in St. Louis and if so, would people care?  

But when the 2019 schedule came out, Cardinals Nation highlighted June 21 on their calendar. The Angels were coming to town and hopefully that meant a healthy Pujols. 

When the fateful day arrived, it seemed picturesque - baseball in St Louis on a beautiful summer Friday. Only apple pie and a Tom Petty tune would have added to the concoction of Americana. 

After an Angel grounded out for the second out in the top of the first, Albert Pujols stepped to the plate. Credit to Cardinals play-by-play announcer Chip Caray who other than saying “Runner to third and here’s Albert”, let the moment speak for itself. 

(I recommend watching here as I give play-by-play of this moment for the next few paragraphs)

As Pujols walks up to the plate, the camera’s wide angle conveys the enormous space his presence creates -  if he wanted, he could part the Red Sea. Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, one of Pujols best friends, walks from home plate towards the edge where infield grass meets dirt. The umpire holds his ground before doing a bastardized sweeping of an already clean plate, just to give Pujols more time to soak in the moment. 

Pujols, the businesslike hitter who’s used a militant routine to prepare for his at bats, seems slightly inconvenienced. He just wants to settle into the batter's box, digging his right foot in the dirt - something he’s done in over 10,000 plate appearances. It’s hard for him to riff during this off-script moment. 

But Molina won’t let Pujols get comfortable, ensuring the slugger looks around and takes in all the visual and vocal forms of adoration. 50,000 Cardinals fans pour their gratitude for one of their franchise’s greatest ever - thankful for his prowess, his prodigiousness, and his lodestar contribution in two World Championships. 

The camera cuts to Adam Wainwright standing on the top steps of the dugout. Like Molina, Waino has remained on the Cardinals long after being teammates with Pujols. Wearing an ear to ear grin, he gestures a tip of the cap to Pujols, telling him to address the crowd. 

Either humility or perhaps discomfort has taken over, but the once reluctant Pujols finally reciprocates appreciation to the crowd. He takes his helmet off, panning a 180 in place to salute the entire ballpark.

With that mutual act of adulation between Cardinals fans and Pujols, Molina strides back to the plate, but not before giving Albert a playful hug. The physical embrace produces a few more decibels from the crowd and for a few more seconds, the crowd continues its roar even as Molina is set, the ump is in position, and the game resumes. 

The crowd remains on its feet, loud as hell, even with the at bat under way. 

Pujols swings and flies out on the first pitch. We’ll never know how long that ovation would have continued. 

I’ve watched that video on YouTube at least 70 times. 

I’m mesmerized by what the moment symbolizes - the apex of the hero’s return, a spiritual crescendo of a loved one coming home. 

Pujols walking from on deck circle to batters box also connotes parallels of bride walking down the aisle; After all, both events processions involve a centered focus around one person as the audience rises to honor this sacred moment. 

The homecoming magic didn’t end that evening. 

The next day Pujols hit a home run, rounding the bases amidst the fans’ thunderous cheer. The Cardinals faithful maintained their applause throughout his walk back from home plate to the dugout, so much so that they got a curtain call out of him. 

Hitting a home run isn’t necessarily part of the homecoming itinerary, but coincedentally Mike Piazza also homered in the game after his return. Like Pujols he received applause trotting the bases, ultimately adhering to the crowd’s curtain call. In an even eerier parallel, both he and Pujols hit their home runs with their new teams trailing 4-0. Spooky!

So why did I devote an article about franchise legends returning to their old stadium? And why romanticize the act of walk from the on deck circle to the batter’s box? 

If sports is an outlet to express our most authentic feelings, we need to honor those moments capable of summoning warmth, gratitude, and awakening. Amidst this new age where athletes are considered commodities or dollar figures, we shouldn’t be afraid to channel an era when athletes were considered heroes and we would honor them with gusto. 

It may not equal the gravitas of some homecomings, like welcoming home soldiers with a parade or pageantry, but if we look at our past, we can find our childhood memories where we felt welcomed back.

Personally, some of my fond memories are driving back from camp or college to pull up to my home driveway and have my parents, sister, and dog greet me with excitement. 

Perhaps one’s wedding-day is the closest simulation we receive to that of a ballplayer’s homecoming - where our friends, family, and dearly beloved come together for this culmination of our stories, life narrative, and legacy. So too does the Hall of Fame ballplayer feel that way when returning to the place he created his legend.  

When the feeling of “home” is associated with the people who loved you, cared for you, and were along for the ride of your growth and achievement, there’s no better feeling to be welcomed back with such joy. 

To quote Coldplay’s masterpiece Clocks,  “Nothing else compares. You are home, where I wanted to go”. 

There’s no better symbolism in sports than a batter having that feeling of coming home as he walks toward home.