Q: Who hit the first home run ever at the New York Mets’ bygone ballpark, Shea Stadium?
A: Willie Stargell, the Pittsburgh Pirate legend who clobbered 475 career home runs—including the first dinger at Shea on April 17, 1964—over his 21-year Major League career.
Q: Who hit the first home run ever at Citi Field, the New York Mets’ brand-new, $850 million coliseum?
A: Sean Lamont, the starting third basemen of this year’s Georgetown Hoyas baseball team.
This past Sunday night, the Hoyas had the privilege of playing in the inaugural game at Citi Field against the St. John’s Red Storm.
With the Red Storm up 3-1 in the middle of the third inning, Lamont trotted out to home plate in front of 22,397 fans, the seventh-largest crowd ever to attend an NCAA baseball game and more fans than anyone on the Georgetown squad had played in front of before.
Lamont quickly went down in the count 0-1 against St. John’s freshman southpaw Brendan Lobban.
Lobban then attempted to throw a waste pitch with an inside fastball. Instead, he threw the ball right in Lamont’s wheelhouse.
“After I hit it, the third basemen from the other team asked me if I got my hands inside it because it was really inside on the dish,” Lamont said. “He probably wasn’t trying to throw a strike in that situation, and I just got my hands inside it and was able to lift it to left.”
And lift it he did. Lamont’s cleared the sizable 15-foot left-field wall and smacked into the green seats more than 335 feet away from home plate.
“It felt pretty awesome at first,” Lamont said, reminiscing about his historic homer. “As soon as I hit it, I knew it was gone. So, I was kind of jogging out of the box, taking a look at it, not really something I’m supposed to do, but I guess I got caught up in the moment and right when I was going around second base, I started laughing to myself, thinking, ‘Wow, that actually happened.’”
The slugger wasn’t the only one who was wowed by the experience. Junior starting pitcher Tim Aldeman threw eight strong innings to earn the first win at Citi Field, but the game was not just another start for the hurler.
“The biggest thing for me was walking from the bullpen, which was in right field, to our dugouts on the first base line with our catcher Greg Pustizzi and our pitching coach, coach Brown, and just kind of looking up and seeing all the people in the stands and how big the stadium was, so it was kind of really overwhelming,” Aldeman said.
Sometimes the biggest stories of a baseball game are the ones that take place outside of the white lines.
Still, Aldeman wasn’t overwhelmed for too long. After a shaky-yet-harmless four innings, Aldeman found his groove and was able to hold the Red Storm scoreless over his last four innings.
Though Aldeman pitched an excellent game, he did so on a day when the biggest story was not the teams playing, but rather the stadium where they met.
Perhaps making up for his passed-over glory, Aldeman’s name will live forever in baseball almanacs as the first pitcher ever to tally a win at Citi Field. And that bit of information is more worthwhile than one great start.
“To be an answer to a trivia question, it’s a cool idea,” he said.
