Adrian Beltre's First Home Run with the Texas Rangers

From the moment he broke into the league in 1998, I was a fan of Adrian Beltre. As a kid, you latch onto certain players and keep up with them. But this was in the pre-internet and regional sports network days, when all I could do was follow his stats in newspapers and baseball cards. Maybe the occasional article in a magazine or an appearance on Sunday night baseball on ESPN. There wasn’t too much information to go on, and definitely no way to see him play every day.

Then Beltre signed with Seattle and kind of disappeared into the wilderness. I still kept up with him, but by then I was in college and didn’t eat, sleep, and breath baseball anymore. I lived in the Dallas area when he signed that one year pillow contract with Boston. I took note and promised myself I would try to go see him play in Arlington. I didn’t, though. Then the 2010 Rangers went on a run that ended in the World Series, and I got swept up in baseball again.

The next year, Texas brought Beltre in to play third base instead of Michael Young. I was a little skeptical. The guy had pretty much disappeared and Boston only kept him for one year. How good could he still be?

My buddy and I got tickets to opening night against the Boston Red Sox. The seats weren’t great, just above right field in foul territory, near the pole. But we were there. And in the bottom of the fourth things got fun.

With two outs and no one on, Yorvit Torreabla doubled. Julio Borbon tripled. Ian Kinsler walked. Elvis Andrus doubled. Josh Hamilton was intentionally walked to load the bases. Beltre came to the plate. I turned to my friend and said, “He’s hitting a grand slam.”

I’m not great at calling home runs. I’m usually wrong when I do. But this time I was right. Beltre put a 1–0 pitch into the seats in left-center field. My buddy and I jumped to our feet along with forty thousand other Texas Rangers fans. We hopped up and down with the pure joy of children. I high-fived strangers. My friend yelled, “He called it! He called it!” to everyone around us, pointing at me.

There’s been six summers of watching Beltre play here in Texas, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it. He’s my favorite player of all time now. And it all started that night in April.

I don’t remember much else about that game. I know the Rangers won easily, and that Colby Lewis pitched. But I’ll never forget Adrian Beltre’s first home run with the Texas Rangers.

You can watch the grand slam here.