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Full disclosure before I give you the details of this story. As soon as he sent me the picture I thought he was full of shit. There’s no way an aluminum bat should crack like that right? I reached out to Bryant’s head coach, Derek Stafford, to confirm this shattered bat photo and sure as shit, he confirmed it.
I asked Coach Fiddler to put the story of the shattered bat into an e-mail so I didn’t mess up any of these very important details. I mean, the guy was there so why don’t we let Coach Fiddler tell the story himself.
“It was Spring Break, 2010, as we competed in the annual Durango Sportco Classic tournament. The game was at Durango High School and it was a morning game, gorgeous as usual. Now, with Kris, it wasn’t uncommon to see something during a game or practice that you fully understood was a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
In the midst of the game that day, KB stepped to the plate as he always did, staying within his routine. The pitch is delivered and KB gets his usual hack in but at the point of contact, the sound it made was more like a tank firing than the traditional sound of an aluminum bat.
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The ball takes off and hits off the top of the fence and bounces back into fair play. The left fielder quickly scooped up the ball and fired it back in with KB is safely pulling into 2B. Of course, we, as coaches, tried to swindle a home run call from the umpires. It was at that moment that we noticed KB’s bat. The cap stayed on, but the barrel looked like it was struck by lightning.
Minutes later, the bat itself was passed down the line on the bench, player by player, and we all just kind of looked at it in awe. If the fence to left was 335, KB’s exploded bat propelled the baseball 334 and a half feet. If the bat didn’t explode, KB would have added one extra home run to his already ridiculous video game stats. In 34 games, he would’ve hit 23 homers instead of 22, but this near-big fly was as memorable or more than any of his moon shots KB hit in his final magical season of high school ball.”
So as it turns out, KB being nicknamed “The Natural” may not be as far off as you’d think.
* A huge thank you to Kevin Fiddler for sharing this story.
