Felix Pie Does It The Right Way

Edit: The video is working again! Hooray!

On Friday night, Chicago Cubs outfielder Felix Pie hit his first home run of his career. Pretty sweet stuff for a Cubs fan. But what's more is how he handled himself after he hit the ball and finally saw that the ball had cleared the fence in right center field. The video below is somewhat low quality (because all others of his first home run were taken off YouTube for copyright violations) but you can see what I am talking about.



I wish more players in the Majors handled themselves like Pie did. Granted it was his first home run, but I see this guy handling most of his home runs the exact same way. Running hard right out of the box and only slowing up (a little in Pie's case) when the ball actually clears the fence. Too many times I've seen major leaguers hit long drives that they think are home runs, only to see them wind up just short and see them held to a single or thrown out at 2nd or 3rd because they didn't hustle out of the box. Seriously, with all the money the get paid, is it that much to ask to run hard for 5-10 seconds once every 2-3 innings?

Now don't get me wrong, some players have the ability to hit absolute bombs and know when they're gone when they hit them. If you know it's gone, then I suppose you can watch it leave the yard. Gary Sheffield put it best last night after hitting his game-winning home run when he said, "I was always told by Dave Parker, when you hit it like that, you can look at it."

If you're 100% it's gone, then watch it. If not, run hard til it leaves the yard.