PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jordan Walker wore his Cardinals hat backward, chewed a big wad of bubble gum and wore the top of his jersey splayed open as he dug in for his final Home Run Derby swing.
The picture of Cardinals cool, Walker chased down Kyle Schwarber, shut up a rambunctious Philly crowd and introduced himself to a much wider baseball world.
Walker used six swings to swat six homers, besting Schwarber in a dramatic final round that silenced all those boo birds and made him the first St. Louis Cardinal to win the Home Run Derby on Monday night.
Schwarber hit 11 homers during his 15-swing turn in the final round. Philly fans, who jeered everyone but Schwarber and Bryce Harper throughout the night, quietly headed toward the exits when Walker’s winning shot soared over the left field wall.
“I was once told you don’t boo nobodies,” Walker said. “So it feels pretty good.”
The 24-year-old Walker sported the Derby champions’ chain, slipped on a leather jacket and still wore his batting gloves as he broke down what it took to take down Schwarber on his home turf.
“My thought was Philly is brutal,” Walker said. “I mean, honestly. But I think it’s pretty special because they love their players and that’s what you want from your home, like, where you play. I mean, I’d never hear people cheer so loud for, like, Schwarber and Harper. And those guys did their thing, for sure.
“But, you know, I can’t hate them, because that’s their guy, so I just got to play the game.”
Walker played a pretty great game in the first half for the Cardinals.
Walker is a first-time All-Star and having a breakout season in St. Louis. He already has a career-high 22 homers this season after struggling with a combined 11 over the previous two years.
Those final six in Philly all flying high with Iron Man on his bat are now stamped on the Derby highlight reel.
His cap backward just like Hall of Famer and Derby great Ken Griffey Jr., Walker celebrated with his family immediately on the field. His father rejoiced in recalling how Walker started hitting long home runs when he was 6 years old.
“When things got tough, they were always there in my corner to talk to them about it,” Walker said of his family. “They kept the energy levels high. They kept the feelings high.”
He fulfilled this childhood dream in striking fashion. Walker hit his seventh homer with two swings remaining and his eighth on the next swing to earn bonus swings. Needing to hit four straight homers to win, the right-handed Jordan knocked one off the top of the center field fence 401 feet away. He reached 10 homers and Philly fans booed with all their might, only for Jordan to finish the sensational surge and celebrate as fireworks shot off around him.
“You can’t say enough about how he was able to kind of slow the moment down, too, and lock it in,” said Schwarber, a Derby runner-up for the second time. “All of our fans were we’re raring and trying to will me to it.”
A revamped Derby format delivered great drama
MLB ditched its timed clock this season and returned to a swing format, with each hitter continuing to swing if he went deep on his final one.
The extra time between swings gave hitters time to track their home runs — and Philly a smidge more time to unleash those throaty boos at Contreras and Walker.
Each player had 20 swings in the first round and the top four advanced. Hitters were seeded for the second round, where No. 1 faces 4 and 2 meets 3.
Each player got 15 swings in the second round, with batters homering on their final swings continuing until not homering.
Boston’s Willson Contreras, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, New York’s Ben Rice and Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone, and Chicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami also participated.
Philly came ready to celebrate its slugging stars
Phillies fans were wildly optimistic that Schwarber and Harper could somehow reach the final and crown the franchise’s third Derby champion.
Harper hit only eight in the first round and was the final slugger to try and advance. Schwarber could only watch as Harper failed to join him. Schwarber, then with the Chicago Cubs, made the finals in 2018 at Nationals Park before losing to Harper when he played with the Nationals.
Schwarber and Harper — the first pair of teammates to participate in the Derby since 2018 — received roaring ovations when famed ring announcer Michael Buffer introduced them ahead of the competition.
As for the other six sluggers in the field, all wearing their home jerseys with red, white and blue uniform numbers?
Yeah, they were about booed out of the ballpark, with the loudest jeers saved for Rice. He gamely laughed as he walked out of his Liberty Bell entrance.
Harper — who said earlier Monday this would be his last Derby — waved his arms and exhorted the crowd to get louder as he walked to the home plate platform placed at second base. Harper about broke the ring ropes as he shook them like a pro wrestler, and the Philly crowd went bonkers for the star known as The Showman.
The ball-shagging kids in the outfield were even booed.
The Derby’s public address announcer implored the fans to cheer during some quiet stretches when homers — non-Phillies edition — were hit.
The fans did get a rise when Caglianone smoked one into Ryan Howard territory into the third deck in right field. Contreras socked ’em into the rarified air of the left field upper deck. One homer cleared the last row of stands in that section and bounced off the concourse in front of a bar. His 490-footer was the longest of the first round.
This was the first Home Run Derby and All-Star Game held at Citizens Bank Park since it opened in 2004 and the first derby in Philadelphia since Barry Bonds outslugged Mark McGwire in 1996 to win an afternoon event in front of thousands of empty seats at Veterans Stadium.
This derby was sold out and aired on Netflix for the first time, with the streamer getting into the game this season with a three-event package. Netflix already aired the opening night game, and the third attraction is the Field of Dreams game between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 13.
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