Geoff Baker focused on SandovalMammoth blast: The Mariners played the first of two intrasquad games Tuesday morning on one of the practice fields at the Peoria Sports Complex, and the team managed by Minor League coach Eddie Rodriguez defeated the Darren Brown club, 3-0.
The final run came via a home run over the 32-foot wall in center field by Minor League outfielder Mike Wilson off right-hander Juan Sandoval.
"That was a bomb," center fielder Adam Jones said. "It sounded good off the bat and he's a strong dude. Raul [Ibanez] told me to play it off the wall, so I slowed down to see where it would hit. I lost [sight] of the ball, until I saw it hit on the pavement, and I knew it had to go over by quite a bit."
The 6-2, 215-pound Wilson said he was surprised the ball went over the tall fence.
"I was thinking 'triple,'" he said. "I sure wasn't thinking home run going over the monster."
As Wilson rounded third base, Mariners coach Mike Goff quipped, "That all you got, Wilson?"
Apparently not.
"I have hit some pretty long shots in my career," Wilson said. "In the playoffs at [Class A] Wisconsin last year, I hit a walkoff home run to left field that went just as far, maybe farther."
There was a touching tale lost in all the hoopla over a massive intrasquad home run hit on Tuesday that may have gone as far as 500 feet.
The blast by Mariners outfield prospect Mike Wilson not only cleared the 410-foot sign in straightaway center on a practice field at the Peoria Sports Complex. But it also sailed over a 30-foot-high "batter's eye" screen and was seen landing on some concrete pavement at least another 60 feet beyond that.
A lone down note on the homer — if there can be such a thing — was that it was crushed off Mariners minor-leaguer Juan Sandoval, making his first mound appearance since a shotgun blast 13 months ago left him blind in his right eye.
One of the first Mariners to take Sandoval aside after Tuesday's big hit was veteran pitcher and fellow Dominican Republic native Miguel Batista.
"The guy hasn't pitched since 2005," Batista said. "He's got one eye. He pitched today and he never got behind in the count.
"That's what I was telling him," he added. "I said that his main concern today was whether he was throwing the ball over the plate. I said 'You haven't pitched in two years, you come back with one eye and you're throwing the ball over the plate for them to swing.'
"I said: 'We've got guys here with two eyes, who pitched last year and on the first day of spring training, they walked the world.'
Baker also has this from the guy who hit the homer
Wilson, 23, who hit 21 homers in 449 total at-bats in Class A and Class AA last season, claims it wasn't his longest. He says a two-run, walk-off homer he clubbed for Class A Wisconsin on Sept. 9, 2005, to end a playoff series with Beloit traveled just as far.
"In my career, I've had some pretty good shots," he said.
He'd have to have for this one to be anything short of his best.
That homer against the Snappers was a rising line drive that went to the left of the scoreboard in leftcenter and looked like it was still going up when it left the ballpark. There wasn't a chance to see where it landed, but it had to clear a secondary fence that blocks off a pedestrian trail behind the stadium and wind up in the woods. It was a beautiful thing, mainly because it beat Beloit.
EDIT: Made the top half of the story more readable.
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