Michelle Alonso arrived at her seat in section 114 at Citi Field shortly before first pitch at the Mets’ home opener in March. Her husband, Peter, was at her side, as they watched her firstborn, also Peter, be announced to the crowd of 44,424 fans as the starting first baseman, batting second.
It was his home debut. Baseball was on parade, but her mind marched back to a quieter time in Queens, her family’s only previous visit to the stadium. It was in the summer of 2016, when Alonso signed his first contract as the Mets’ second round pick — No. 64 overall — in Major League Baseball’s amateur draft.
“So bizarre,” she says. “Nobody was here. Front office people were out. He just signed quietly in a conference room and they ordered pizza. Still, you felt, hopefully one day he’ll be here, and this is the day.”
When he walked to home plate for the first time, the stadium speakers played Cody Johnson’s “Welcome to the Show.”
Alonso, 24, is the must-see Met at the moment. For nightly viewers of the team’s long-running tragicomedy, he offers moonshots and much-needed mirth. In the wake of David Wright’s retirement and Yoenis Cespedes’s rehabilitations, he has filled the offensive void with a potent bat and boyish exuberance. On pace to surpass Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge’s record of 52 home runs as a rookie with 53, Alonso is the Mets’ homegrown answer to the Yankees slugger. His ability to do so with an eager gait and gracious demeanor has been noticeable when compared to other recent star turns down the No. 7 line.
“For a rookie to kind of take on that leadership role like he’s doing, and perform like an All-Star, it’s unbelievable,” Mets Manager Mickey Callaway says. “And it’s because he does everything the right way at all times.”
The next stop on Alonso’s learning curve is the Subway Series in the Bronx. For Yankees fans just tuning in, here is the scouting report on No. 20:
1. He is known as “The Polar Bear” among his teammates and coaches. His beard, paunch, dense build (6-foot-3, 245 pounds), raw power and general good nature earned him the nickname.
“I’m not surprised,” his mother says. “I’ve got a picture of him shirtless on the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska because he was like, ‘It’s not cold here.’ He was in eighth grade. This kid.”
2. Alonso is a Statcast all-star. His homers average 410 feet. His longest was 454 feet, and left his bat at 118.3 miles per hour.
He leads all rookies in home runs (21), R.B.I. (46), hits (60), extra-base hits (35), slugging (.604), on-base (.341) and total bases (139). He is also tied for first with triples (2), walks (21) and runs scored (37). When he hit his latest homer Saturday night, his launch angle was 48 degrees and the apex of the ball’s flight was 185 feet in the air, which tied Cespedes’s highest home run in team history.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, that was sick,’” Alonso says. “Probably one of the most interesting ones I’ve hit, for sure.
3. He is taking notes. He keeps a marble composition notebook in his locker with his name, “Peter Alonso,” and the year, “2019,” on the cover, like a schoolboy’s diary.
After each game and before he showers, he spends two to three minutes at his locker jotting down thoughts about how he performed, what pitch sequences the opposition threw him and how he can improve.
“If I start thinking too much, then the wheels start turning really fast and I get kind of out of control,” he says. “Once I step in that box, I turn the brain off.”
4. Alonso walks past a sign that reads “Hunt Your Pitch” by the dugout each day. He also owns camouflage cleats, a camouflage sleeve, a camouflage jacket, a camouflage travel bag and camouflage sandals that he wears out of the shower.
“I just like the style,” he says. “I’m not going to show up in a full ghillie suit.”
