The best ball of Sawyer Strosnider’s young pro career didn’t just clear the fence. It landed in his father’s glove.
On Wednesday, during Wisconsin’s game against Lake County, Strosnider - the Brewers’ second-round pick out of TCU in this year’s Major League Baseball Draft - drove a pitch to right-center field for his first home run as a professional. The man who came away with the souvenir was his dad, Scott.
The timing made it even better. Wisconsin is part of a tight race in the Midwest League’s West Division, with the Quad Cities River Bandits, the Royals’ Class A club, sitting on a seven-game winning streak and tied for the second-half lead. The Timber Rattlers are 3 1/2 games back, but the night belonged to a moment that had nothing to do with the standings.
Scott Strosnider was already filming the at-bat when the ball came his way. After making the catch, he shouted, “Hey, that’s my son!”
He later told MiLB.com, “The people on the party deck were like, ‘You know, this is a private party,’” Scott Strosnider told MiLB.com. “I was like, ‘Well, my son’s about to hit a home run that I’m going to catch.’”
He also described the split-second decision that turned the whole scene into a keepsake for the family.
He added: “I’ve seen him take tens of thousands of swings, been at so many ball games, and I just had a feeling that he was due. We’re going home tomorrow, so I thought maybe this last at-bat he’ll catch one.
I went out, and I thought let’s see what happens. I videotaped it, and as it was coming to me, I thought that this ball had a chance to land right to me.
So I dropped my phone, and I actually caught the ball. I didn’t miss the ball.”
Sawyer Strosnider wasn’t surprised his dad was in the right spot.
He told MiLB.com: “My dad, he can’t sit still, so he loves to run around the stadium. I’ll just be looking up after a foul ball or something and see him on every different side of the stadium. I think it was just the right place at the right time.”
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