It was a proud day for Boston College on Sunday as former Eagle Tony Sanchez made his major league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sanchez is one of the greatest baseball players in school history, ranking in the Top 10 in just about every offensive category all-time. He was also the first BC player to make the All-ACC First Team.
Sanchez was drafted fourth overall by Pittsburgh in 2009, and, after some trouble developing as a hitter in the minors, he really broke out in 2013, earning a .951 OPS in 55 games in Triple-A. That earned him a trip to the big club, and his first at-bat was certainly a memorable one.
The Pirates played the Angels in Anaheim on Sunday, and Sanchez got his first at-bat in the second inning. Facing Joe Blanton, Sanchez got a fastball on the outer half of the plate and drove it the other way off the wall. Except that, once the ball hit the wall, it didn’t ricochet off of it. Rather, the ball got stuck between padding on the high fence and a protective grating for the out-of-town scoreboard.
For the record, the umpires eventually retrieved the ball between innings, and Sanchez got the traditional souvenir from his first big league hit. Check out the funny moment in the video below.
