One hundred seventy-seven months after Ramírez hit his first home run as a 21-year-old playing in Yankee Stadium, the grand edifice whose shadows fall not far from the bodegas of Washington Heights where he grew up, the Red Sox left fielder hit the 500th home run of his career, one day after his 36th birthday.
It came with two outs and nobody on base in the seventh inning of Boston's 6-3 win over the Orioles, on his fourth at-bat of the game, and on the first pitch from Chad Bradford, the former Red Sox reliever whose submarine delivery had offered little mystery to Ramírez in earlier encounters and not a whit last night.
"It was great, especially since I've tried so hard to hit it the last three weeks to get it done," said Ramírez, wearing a gray T-shirt with oversized block red type that read, "Got 500" on the front. "Finally it came and I'm happy, I'm proud of myself and the things that I've accomplished."
With his Brazilian-born wife, Juliana, sitting among the crowd of 48,281 in Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Ramírez hit Bradford's fastball 410 feet to become the 24th player in baseball history to join the 500 club, matching the uniform number on the road grays he wore last night. He becomes the third player to hit his 500th for the Red Sox, joining Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams, both in the Hall of Fame, a place where Ramírez undoubtedly has reserved some wall space of his own. He also becomes the second player from the Dominican Republic in that fraternity, joining Sammy Sosa, who finished his career with 609.
"I'm just proud to do it and move on," Ramírez said. "Now I can be myself and have fun."
