Clint Frazier's first career homer brought his mom to tears
The New York Yankees lineup got even deeper on Saturday when top prospect Clint Frazier was promoted to the big leagues.
The 22-year-old slugger was immediately penciled into Joe Girardi’s lineup, batting ninth and starting in right field in his major-league debut. That’s right, Frazier was in and Aaron Judge was out, though only to catch a breather after playing nearly every day for three months.
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Fittingly enough, Frazier made a Judge-like impact. No, he didn’t homer in his first at-bat. He saved those dramatics for his third time up when he launched a Tony Sipp pitch into the Crawford Boxes at Minute Maid Park.
It was a pretty cool moment for Frazier as he rounded the bases for the first time and then returned to a silent dugout. But the scene was stolen by his mother, Kim Frazier, whose joy could simply not could be contained.
In fact, she was so overwhelmed with emotions that it started rubbing off on everyone watching the game.
Clint Frazier's mom can't control the emotions. Man is it dusty in my apartment. And I didn't know couches gave off pollen.
— Joe Rivera (@JoeRiveraSN) July 2, 2017
The only person I love more tonight than Clint Frazier is Clint Frazier's mom
— caroline (@revolutionrygal) July 2, 2017
clint frazier's mom sobbing at his first homer is me
— Janiece (@feelingamazing) July 2, 2017
It was all of us, really. And this was before we learned Frazier was going to give the baseballs from his first hit and home run to his parents.
Clint Frazier said he will give the first hit ball to his mom, the homer to his dad. Meeting the kid who caught the homer right now.
— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) July 2, 2017
Coming into the game everyone wanted to talk about haircuts and how Frazier might or might not fit in the clubhouse. One night doesn’t answers those questions or remove us entirely from those concerns, but it was one helluva start.
Along the way Frazier made a little bit of history too.
Clint Frazier's 6 total bases (so far) are most by a Yankee in his MLB debut in the last 100 yrs.
— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) July 2, 2017
Clint Frazier: 1st Yankee in last 100 years with a HR and a double in his MLB debut.
— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) July 2, 2017
And perhaps most importantly to some, he got one of the better home run calls from Yankees radio voice John Sterling.
"And downtown goes Frazier!" – #Yankees Sterlings call.
— J. Styborski (@J_Styborski) July 2, 2017
For eight-plus innings it would have been difficult to script a better debut than this one. Then Dellin Betances came in and had a rare off night, allowing four runs. As a result, the Yankees would ultimately fall to the Astros 7-6. But there will undoubtedly be better and more memorable days ahead with Clint Frazier in the fold.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
