Cataloguing everyone in the dugout's reactions to the Yaz slam
An important exercise in baseball analysis
On Tuesday night, Mike Yastrzemski hit an 8th inning grand slam to complete a 7-run comeback and give the Giants a 9-8 lead, which would be the final score of the game. This grand slam was very cool. It was an incredible moment in a wildly improbable season, a symbol of just how good Giants fans have had it in 2021.
I will not be writing about the grand slam.
The dugout, as you would expect, went absolutely ballistic for Yastrzemski’s dinger. Here’s just one shot of them getting very excited:
(L-R in the front row in this picture: Dubon, Tauchman, Duggar, Slater, Vosler, Wood, Webb, Gausman. Solano is in the back. Dickerson’s hands are on the rail between Slater and Vosler. DeSclafani is to Gausman’s left, just out of view of the camera. If I misidentified someone, like Vosler for example maybe, well, whoops)
If you want a moving version with sound, well, I’ve got your back:
Time to examine just how everyone in the dugout reacted to the homer! We start with…
Alex Dickerson
Even though you can’t hear him, you can hear him. You know that “Ohhhh!” that he’s saying here. You know the mixture of hope, awe, and excitement in his voice as he watched the homer. And then he slunk into the background, vanishing behind Steven Duggar. The rest of the celebration was for guys who aren’t on the IL.
Jason Vosler
Ah, the fist pump. A classic of the genre. If you watch the video, you can see the energy build and build inside of him until he lets it out with that brief fist pump, after which he gets off the rail and looks for a prime spot in the dugout to congratulate Yaz. Always gotta be planning your next move. Classic Vosler!
I mean, classic Vosler unless it’s someone else who I misidentified. I’m 70% sure on this, though, so that’s pretty good.
Alex Wood
“Hi, I’m Alex Wood. You might remember me from such screenshots as The Background Of The Jason Vosler Screenshot. I enjoy it when the baseball team that employs me hits cool, dramatic, game-changing grand slams and I convey that enjoyment through raising my orange-sleeved arms and going, “Yeah!” I lead a charmed life.”
Kevin Gausman
I will admit that you don’t get much out of a screenshot here. Gausman is in frame if you look for him, but it’s very brief and a still picture doesn’t convey how fun he is. As the ball starts traveling down the line and it begins to look like it’ll go out, Gausman starts to coil up a little. When it goes out, he springs into action with joy and exuberance, hopping and pumping his fist in the air. And you don’t get any of that from the screenshot. A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but in this case all those words are stupid.
Logan Webb
You can see Alex Wood’s big dumb orange arms distracting everyone again. But the important thing here is Webb, who had this little nervous energy as the ball was in the air, leaning to the side to try to coax it fair, then releases it when it clears the fence.
We’re all clear that these rankings aren’t in any real order, right? Maybe I should have mentioned that at the beginning, but on the other hand, whatever.
Anthony DeSclafani
We don’t have a great view of DeSclafani, but from what we do see, he leans back as the ball is leaving the park, collecting potential energy, and then shoots forward when it goes out, releasing it.
Mauricio Dubon
You can’t really get it from a still picture, especially since Dubon was in the corner of the picture and certainly not the focus of the shot, but he was pounding the rail and yelling. The main thing I want to get across here is that everyone has their own unique energy and that should be treasured.
Donovan Solano
At first I was like:
But then I was like:
Jumping up and down like a little kid! Who doesn’t love to see a grown man jump up and down like a little kid? I’ll tell you who: HITLER.
Steven Duggar
Duggar was the first one to do the classic standing-up-with-a-fist-in-the-air pose. He’s been up and down for a few years now, but he still has the energy and exuberance of a young player. And this is just a simple expression of excitement, but well executed.
Austin Slater
This is the face of someone who just saw a man eat his own head. This is NOT where Austin Slater saw his night going.
Mike Tauchman
Mike Tauchman JUST hit a grand slam to turn a deficit into a lead. It was a week ago, in Texas. Do you think he’s impressed by seeing Mike Yastrzemski steal his move? Friends, he was not impressed. Look at that picture at the top again. He is just sitting there, calm. “This is all right,” Mike Tauchman mildly mulls.
Tauchman does eventually raise his fists in celebration. But he has a total too cool for school thing going here, and it’s delightful. “I’d have caught it,” he might be thinking, about a ball that landed like 30 feet into the water.
Watching someone sit there, an oasis of calm while the world explodes all around him? Outstanding. Watch the clip 12 times and you’ll see something new every time, but your eyes will always be drawn towards Tauchman, sitting there with seeming indifference during the most inspiring moment of the season. May we all be this cool someday.