Joshua Báez grew up bouncing between Santo Domingo and Dorchester before becoming a local baseball legend at Cristo Rey Boston and Dexter Southfield. On Saturday, he turned that hometown story into major league history, launching three home runs in his very first big league game to lead the St. Louis Cardinals past the Chicago Cubs 8-4 at Wrigley Field.
Báez, born in Boston in 2003, became the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit three home runs in his MLB debut, according to Boston.com. He finished the day 3-for-4 with five RBIs, three runs scored and 12 total bases, a stat line that instantly separated him from every one of the more than 23,000 players who have ever appeared in a major league game, per Boston.com’s reporting citing Baseball Reference.
A First-Pitch Blast Into the Books
Báez didn’t wait long to announce himself. He crushed the very first pitch he saw as a major leaguer — a 449-foot two-run shot to dead center off Cubs starter Matthew Boyd — putting St. Louis ahead 3-0. As reported by Field Level Media, that made him the 33rd player in MLB history to homer on the first pitch of his career and the fourth visiting player ever to do it at Wrigley Field. It was also the longest home run hit by any player in his first career plate appearance during the Statcast era, which began tracking precise distances in 2015, according to the outlet.
He wasn’t finished. Báez followed with a tie-breaking solo shot in the fourth inning that traveled 382 feet to left field, giving the Cardinals a 4-3 lead. That made him just the ninth player in MLB history — and third in St. Louis franchise history — to homer in each of his first two career plate appearances, joining Bob Nieman of the 1951 St. Louis Browns and Keith McDonald of the 2000 Cardinals, per The Guardian.
A Third Homer, and a Standing Ovation From Cubs Fans
In the sixth inning, on his third career at-bat, Báez went deep again, this time 368 feet to right field, pushing St. Louis’s lead to 6-3. All three home runs came off Boyd, who entered the game with an 8-1 record and hadn’t lost since March 26, but was tagged for seven runs in 5 1/3 innings, the same Guardian report notes.
Báez finally made an out in his fourth plate appearance in the eighth inning, lining out to left field for the first out of his major league career. What happened next said as much about the moment as the numbers did: the Wrigley Field crowd, rooting for the rival Cubs, rose to give the Cardinals rookie a standing ovation, according to Field Level Media’s account. The Cardinals themselves celebrated on social media, with the team posting that “Báez bombs are here, St. Louis!” after his performance capped an 8-4 win that helped St. Louis bounce back after dropping the series opener.
From Dorchester Sandlots to Triple-A Dominance
Báez’s path to Wrigley ran through Boston’s own baseball scene. He and his family moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, when he was an infant, then relocated to Dorchester when he was in sixth grade, learning English in middle school after returning to the United States, per Boston.com. He attended Snowden International School as a sophomore before transferring to Cristo Rey Boston as a freshman and eventually graduating from Dexter Southfield School in Brookline in 2021, the outlet reports. He was named Massachusetts Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year in 2020.
The Cardinals selected Báez 54th overall in the 2021 draft, and he signed for a $2.25 million bonus — nearly $1 million above the $1.34 million slot value — to pull him away from a Vanderbilt commitment, according to Redbird Rants. At the time, the then-18-year-old told KSDK his goal was to be better than Mike Trout and become the face of baseball, and that he planned to use his signing bonus to buy his mother a house.
That investment looked well-placed by the time Báez arrived in the majors this month. Before his call-up from Triple-A Memphis, he posted a .256/.328/.573 slash line with 34 home runs, 90 RBIs, 22 doubles and 21 stolen bases across 103 games, leading Triple-A in home runs, runs and RBIs and finishing seven home runs ahead of the next-closest player, according to Heavy Sports. He was rated the Cardinals’ No. 3 overall prospect at the time of his promotion, per Field Level Media.
Back in Dorchester, Báez still keeps ties to the neighborhood that shaped him — his MLB.com bio lists El Dugout and Nick’s Pizza in Boston among his favorite places to eat, according to Boston.com. Major League Baseball noted that he homered three times “in front of family and friends” during his debut, a fitting detail for a player whose rise from Dorchester sandlots to a record-setting night at Wrigley Field played out in front of the people who knew him first.
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