Major League Baseball’s Players Weekend is a time for players to uncloak their personalities and bring a little fun to the game. With uniform rules suspended for the weekend, players lace up colorful cleats and proudly wear their nicknames on their jerseys. But some, like Kevan Smith (and Tim Anderson last season), choose to honor special people in their lives.
"I was almost crying when I was running around the bases." Kevan Smith reflects on what it meant to hit his first HR of the season wearing a jersey that honors Daniel Webb. pic.twitter.com/LsuFCOejZi
— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) August 26, 2018
Smith chose to have “Webby” etched on his jersey to remember his close friend and former White Sox teammate who passed away in October after an ATV accident. With “Webby” on his shoulders, Smith laced his first home run of the season on Saturday night and he discussed the emotions of that moment after the game.
“I bet you can imagine who I was looking at,” Smith told Jason Benetti in a postgame field interview. “Just overwhelming when I hit it. It was just system overload. I almost started crying running around the bases. I mean I was wondering where that home run was hiding this year. If you don’t beleive that God’s up there and Webby’s watching down and he’s alive and thriving, I mean I don’t know how you can’t. … I almost broke down in the dugout. It was just something I’ll never forget. I got the ball I have the bat, something I’m going to cherish and I can’t wait to tell my son all about it.”
Smith named his newborn son Wyatt Daniel as an homage to Webb. When asked what Nicky Delmonico said to Smith after he completed his trot around the bases he had this to say:
“He was like ‘dude when you hit that ball I had goosebumps from my toenails all the way up to my freakin eyeballs.'”
Baseball has the tendency to highlight dramatic moments and elevate them into a dazzling array of emotions. Although “Webby’s” first dinger of 2018 won’t reach the transcendence of Derek Jeter‘s last hit or Josh Hamilton‘s resurrection in the Home Run Derby, it sure warms the cockles of our hearts.
