Woman watches calmly while her brother Brandon Crawford hits HR off husband Gerrit Cole
Ball is life for Amy Cole.
The former Bruin played softball at UCLA where she met her future husband Gerrit Cole, who pitched for the UCLA baseball team and now has of the best arms in baseball for the Houston Astros.
She is also the sister of San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford. So, yeah. She has a pretty strong connection to baseball.
It’s a connection that occasionally leads to moments like this from Tuesday night, when Cole and Crawford ended up facing one another on the diamond.
Brandon Crawford hits 2-run HR off his brother-in-law
Oh, that’s awkward. What do you do there? Probably exactly what Cole did — sit calmly and stoically and hope the cameras don’t linger too long.
Amy Cole has seen this before
It’s not the first time she’s watched the two face off. Before Cole joined the Astros this offseason, he spent five years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, which meant multiple National League matchups against the Giants.
Cole talked to the Houston Chronicle about the stress of the matchups prior to Tuesday’s game.
“I always get nervous watching,” Amy told the Chronicle. “Even when Brandon was in Little League, I would get butterflies watching him at the plate, so I think just because I care a lot about both of them, I think I take it harder than either of them sometimes.”
Prior to Tuesday, Cole and Crawford had faced each other 18 times in MLB games according to the Chronicle’s tally, with Crawford notching four hits and Cole logging five strikeouts.
So Crawford was due.
Amy told the Chronicle the two are close and root for each other when they’re not facing off. Cole, whose Astros won the game, 11-2, found a way to have fun with the moment after the game.
Gerrit Cole signed the pair of cleats he wore tonight and sent them over to brother-in-law Brandon Crawford. On one shoe he wrote "Outta here” and on the other he wrote "Adios, pelota."
"I try to have a little fun with it," Cole said.
— Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) May 23, 2018
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