James Wood, the Washington Nationals giant will lead things
off and there's. over the top house so easy
to just go with good wood when James Wood is
in it. That will do it. That's a
great first effort for James Wood. Tell you what
, that sets the bar 16 to 3 right out
of the gate, including an absolute miss. Now
4 in his 1st 5 swings. I'd say he's
in a Pretty good spot and it's simple. It's
controlled. He stays back, no kick. very
good round for Brent Rucker. He now moves ahead
of James Wood and the family is loving the machine
that Rucker was. He put on a show,
somebody who seems just built for this event, Junior
Cammonerro of the Tampa Bay Rays. If you look
at a guy that is built for fast rapid fire
home run derby swing, it's him, no doubt
about it. The new leader in the clubhouse is
Junior Camaro. Take a breath, big fella.
Time to welcome O'Neal Cruz, all 6'7, 240
pounds. Welcome to the er Wow, all the
players are standing up, his teammate Paskes. The
thing is, the bat looks like a toothpick in
his hands. That's how big he is, and
I said we'd have a 500 ft homer. We
have one. That one that went out to right
center was 513 ft. So we have a tie
at the top, but man. Was that impressive
. This whole derby for him was about his son
Bricks, who said, Dad, I don't know
how many more years we can do this. I
want to bring you the towel and the Gatorade.
Oh my. Oh yes, I remember the top
4 and now it's a wait and see game for
Byron Buxton, who moves into. 3rd place,
the top 4 will advance. This is such an
incredible year and first half that Raleigh had, he's
got more homers in the first half than he's had
in any regular season, and he's down to his
final out. Oh, he'll keep it going though
with a monster shot. Don't forget what Florida State
, a lot of tomahawk chops over there as well
. He has got to 17 clutch, 2 homers
with 2 outs, and the word is in that
Cal Rawley had a baseball at 471 go further,
so Raleigh has knocked Rooker out. Listen to the
place explode for Matt Olsen. Ultimately, most of
these fans have come for one reason, and he
is standing in the batter's box right now. Oh
. But he's up OK. It will not happen
for Eddie Perez and Matt Olsen tonight. The number
for Bucks is 6, and you can see the
physical toll that it has taken on him tonight.
See if he can get in a little groove.
Go out with a bang. The number will be
7 for Byron Buxton, and that is what Junior
Cainero. Shoot 4 and now he knows he has
7, so he can be on cruise control,
get that first one out of the way and just
get going. That back foot of his is already
pointing almost towards the plate a little bit this way
. This is going to help him now. It's
the hidden gem in baseball. The biggest hidden gem
I believe is Caro in Tampa Bay. Junior That's
it, Junior Cameron. Advance as he knocks out
Byron busted, and he did it in about a
minute. That's what I was just gonna say he
did it with under a minute. Oh, what
a start. Homers for swings for Wally. There's
urgency in these swings right now because he understands the
power of O'Neil Cruz. He has to put pressure
on him. What a different start compared to Byron
. He said bring it down a little bit to
his dad. Remember, his younger brother is catching
and has the best view of everybody. E.
00 yeah, Pops is doing it. He's grooving
it right where he wants it. Derby champion looks
like I ain't gonna lie that dumper right now is
helping him because he has lost 19 for the big
jumper. That's a high bar, but if anybody
can jump over in this derby, it might be
O'Neill Bru. This is going to have to be
one of the most unbelievable comebacks if he's able to
surpass Cal Riley here. We've seen a few of
those. If there's one guy in this derby right
now that can do it, it's him. Longest
one of the night, even him, he can't
believe he hit it that far. Oh, that's
nasty. If he wants to continue, he's got
to hit 8 homers before he makes another out,
down to 6. Oh, that is not nearly
enough. And Cal Rawley is now one round away
in an incredibly created scenario, dad, brother,
pitcher, catcher. Oh, big fly to center
. That just got over. What a start for
Cal Roley just like last time after he hit a
home run, he asked for time out. This
guy knows his swing and look at the path here
. Eyes to the ball, they'll tell you the
story all day. You got one. deep to
All right, there's the number. 18. He's
put pressure on Caro. Definitely put pressure on it
. Is it going to be enough though? They
count The umpire counted it good because that was a
home run, it looks like. That was disrupted
Caro as well. Oh man, that's tough.
He's down to one out and he needs. No
The Dominican dominance comes to an end. The big
dumper is your. Derby champion for 2025 means the
world, you know, I could hit 0 home
runs and I would have had just as much fun
, so I just can't believe it. It's unbelievable
. Well, it's just a great accomplishment and I
think that everybody, every dad's ever had a kid
. This is what they dreamed about and as a
dad, you kind of dream about it to see
it come true for your son is unbelievable. These
two guys on stage with me, uh, along
with myself and Erin. are guys that you can
root for, are super talented, are going to
be the faces of this game for years to come
. And so for me to have Paul represent the
National League, the first and only Pirates pitcher to
ever do that in back to back games, All-Star
games, unprecedented, and it wouldn't surprise me if
he does it next year as well. Obviously to
be able to give the ball to Trick Scoubel,
one of the games, true aces coming up.
The Cy Young season last year and then just continuing
that dominance in the first half of the season.
I can't wait to see him get us off on
a good note tomorrow night, but excited to go
go at it with this group tomorrow night and do
it in Atlanta. It's the All-Star game is something
that I think, you know, for myself,
I was lucky enough to do it last year.
I don't imagine a scenario where I would, you
know, turn down starting the All-Star game, and
it's just such a huge honor to, you know
, be on this stage and play with. You
know, all these unbelievable players, uh, some
of them that I've, you know, watched for
years, and to be able to share a field
with them is is an awesome experience. So great
to be back. Yeah, it's gonna be fun
. It's going to be a ton of fun.
I mean, anytime you get to be in a
clubhouse with the game's best and go against you know
the game's best on the other side, um,
it makes for a great product and I and I
hope the fans appreciate that that this really is the
game's best players and it's an honor to share the
room with them. a 10 year old, you
know, if I'd be here at 33 at my
son's All-Star game. And I, I wouldn't believe
you, that's for sure. Like I said,
I never want to take these moments for granted because
I'm gonna play this game for a short amount of
time. Uh, you know, I'll be on
the couch watching this, you know, here in
a couple of years, so just try to enjoy
every moment. I grew up watching amazing Japanese players
play on this stage, so I'm hoping that I
could be that kind of example to the future Japanese
players in the past. I was a younger player
. I really enjoyed playing the veteran and I feel
like this year I see more of the younger players
coming up and the best in baseball, I'm so
excited to be here. I think we both had
a kind of circle that I needed to play well
in 2025. So luckily I got off to a
good start. The last few weeks haven't been that
great, but um, you know, every time
I come back I try and portray what Atlanta means
to me, especially every time I come up,
the ovations they give me every time I come back
the last 4 years. So I spent a lot
of wonderful years here, brought a championship back here
, so, uh, I'm looking forward to,
you know, today and tomorrow, especially tomorrow,
and playing in front of these fans again. For
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