Mariners prospect Austin Shenton makes history as latest to tame center field wall in Tacoma
The stories get passed on to each new baseball player who comes to Cheney Stadium in Tacoma. For more than 60 years, the wall in center field has stood, taunting every batter who has dared to step to the plate to challenge it.
Only two have ever cleared it in a regular season minor league game.
A.J. Zapp was the first to do it. One warm September evening in 2004, the Rainiers first baseman sent a moonshot over the wall, defying those — including his manager — who doubted it could be done. The blast was estimated at 505 feet, and is still considered the longest home run ever hit at the park.
About eight months later, in his debut year in Triple-A, then-Mariners prospect Shin-Soo Choo, now an everyday outfielder for the Rangers, matched the feat when he rocketed a pitch over the wall.
Others, notably Jay Buhner and Jose Canseco, have carried baseballs over the wall during batting practice through the years, but to hit one over against live pitching is a rare event.
In the years since Choo’s knock, the wall has stood quietly in enormity at 29 feet high, its distance marker of 425 feet away from home plate printed in white against its dark green backdrop, waiting.
“You’ve got to hit that ball obviously extremely hard, but you also have to have the right angle on it, too, because the wall’s so high just to get it over,” Mariners outfield prospect Jake Fraley said Tuesday afternoon, after witnessing a moment of history in Tacoma.
Fraley, who spent some time last summer with the Rainiers roaming the vast chasm that is center field at Cheney, was as stunned as everyone else in the ballpark when 22-year-old prospect Austin Shenton crushed a ball to deep center that cleared the wall with ease and landed somewhere in the Foss High School parking lot beyond.
“That’s a big boy home run right there,” Fraley said. “We definitely gave him a lot of credit when he came in the dugout. I think we’ll probably be talking about that for a lot more days to come.”
The loud crack of the bat was unmistakable. Shenton, a Bellingham High School product, clobbered the pitch from prospect George Kirby. The sound echoed, and the ball had lift, but so many of those hits to center tend to drop before even reaching the warning track.
This one didn’t. All center fielder Braden Bishop could do was tilt his head up and watch it fly over. Trackman data estimated the ball traveled 453 feet.
“I knew I struck it well, but I just kind of kept my head down, because I was expecting to hear it clank off the wall or something, and take my double or triple,” Shenton said.
“But, then I kind of saw him just looking up, Braden, and then I was like, ‘Oh, gosh.’ I caught a good down wind, you know? I got it up in the breeze, so that was good.”
Fraley, who was watching from the third base dugout, wouldn’t give the wind so much credit for aiding the home run, though.
“I have seen the wind blow harder than that, and guys hit the ball just as hard, and that ball gets tracked down every single time,” he said. “So, it was impressive. Very impressive.”
Because this was an intrasquad game — the Mariners dubbed Tacoma’s stadium as their alternate training site with the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out the minor league season — Shenton’s homer won’t be recorded in any official regular season game book, but it was nonetheless a marvel to witness.
Shenton, who grew up in Bellingham, is likely the first Washington native to ever clear the wall in a game situation, batting practice or otherwise.
He hit towering homers earlier in his career at Bellevue College, Florida International University and last season with Short-A Everett and Low-A West Virginia, but supposes this is the longest that’s ever been tracked.
“It was nice to get a good pitch and put a good swing on it,” he said.
The moment will surely be a memorable one from his summer spent at Cheney with the rest of Seattle’s player pool reserves.
Like many other up-and-coming prospects at the site, Shenton, who was drafted by the Mariners in the fifth round out of FIU last year, is tasked with honing his craft during the August and September months and and preparing for 2021.
After impressing in Everett and West Virginia during his first professional season — he hit .298/.376/.510 with 17 doubles, two triples, seven homers and 36 RBI in 53 games between the two affiliates in 2019 — Shenton was one of 60 players invited to Seattle’s three-week summer camp in July.
Though his first full professional season was canceled amid the pandemic, the chance to work out alongside other talented players in the organization offered opportunity to progress. Shenton recorded one hit in his nine at-bats during the camp, facing big league pitching on a regular basis for the first time, but the experience itself could accelerate his path.
“This exposure is something that you never could have envisioned after my first pro season,” he said. “This would have been my first full season, so it’s definitely been cool just seeing the talented arms and getting to face them 2-3 times a week. It’s been an awesome experience.”
He’s continued to see high-caliber pitching in Tacoma with prospects like Logan Gilbert, Kirby and Emerson Hancock — the club’s three most recent first-round draft picks — all training at the site.
Tuesday was the first time he’d seen Kirby, his teammate in Everett last season, who he also plays golf with regularly with and carpools to the ballpark with, in a live situation.
“Kirby is a great pitcher, and he’s got amazing stuff, and I think he’s the best pitcher in our draft class,” Shenton said. “ … I was trying to get a good pitch over the plate, and just stay true to my approach, and just kind of treat him like another guy, even though he’s not. I’ve seen it firsthand what he does.”
But, Shenton won the first intrasquad battle between the two. Kirby regularly pumps his fastball in the mid-to-upper 90s, but Shenton handled the heat, working a 3-0 count and mashing the home run.
“He’s my guy, so we’ll have some friendly banter about this,” Shenton joked. “I honestly don’t care what I do in future at-bats. I’m just glad I got one off him.”
As Shenton circled the bases, cheers from teammates and coaches followed as the shot left the yard.
He joked later it was all of those “extra deadlifts and squats” that pushed the ball over the wall.
But, here’s how Shenton, and others, will remember the historic home run on a calm, sunny afternoon in Tacoma for years to come.
“I think it was a mixture of luck, Kirby throwing really hard, and a decent little swing,” he said.
