'Twins fans for life': Father, son meet Buxton after catching walk-off HR

MINNEAPOLIS -- When a father and young son catch a walk-off home run, it already makes for an unforgettable moment. The Twins helped to turn it into something even more special than that.

When Byron Buxton crushed his walk-off dinger off Orioles closer Jorge López last Friday, the baseball traveled an estimated 399 feet into the bleachers in left-center field, bouncing around the stairs in the aisle before falling into the hands of Jacob Crets and his 3-year-old son, Hudson.

The crowd around them, already cheering maniacally for Buxton's blast, started roaring even louder when Jacob held Hudson up into the air, the ball in the boy's hands.

"It was just an incredible experience that most people probably would never get, and something that I'm sure he's never going to forget, which I think is amazing," Jacob Crets said. "Because of it, he has not stopped talking about Byron Buxton, about us winning the game, about us catching the ball, and I think it's just -- it's going to be a memory he's going to have forever."

Then, Twins vice president of communications and content Dustin Morse put out a call on Twitter with a screenshot of the Crets family, asking the internet to help the team find them.

On Sunday, all four members of the Crets family -- Jacob, Hudson, wife Kirsten and 6-month-old baby Harrison -- were in the home clubhouse at Target Field, with an opportunity that few, if any fans ever get: the chance not only to personally get that ball signed by Buxton at his locker, but also to step into the indoor batting cages during the club's pregame hitters' meeting and talk to the team about their experience.

It's not often that players will get a chance to hear a firsthand testimonial like that about what such a moment means for a young father and son in the stands, and the importance of such memories and experiences centered around baseball to the families out there.

They were also led around the pregame clubhouse -- simultaneously a relaxed and buzzing environment -- and met bench coach Jayce Tingler, manager Rocco Baldelli and several players, with Buxton's son, Brixton, even hanging around that day. They got to sit in on the pregame manager media session and took in batting practice from the field.

"We drove home [on Friday], and I was like, 'We could go home now, and we've had the most amazing experience ever,'" Jacob Crets said. "And then Dustin tracked us down, and I didn't even know what that would entail, right? And then he was like, 'Hey, meet Byron, get the ball signed,' which we were thrilled about. But then to be able to talk to the team and share the experience of what baseball and winning means to the fans and as a family. I mean, it was really, really cool."

The Crets family came to the Twin Cities from nearly 2,000 miles away in Modesto, Calif., on a work assignment for dad Jacob, and being big baseball fans -- but not Twins fans -- they wanted to get Hudson to his first Major League game and make it out to Target Field as a family for the first time.

All game, Hudson watched the outfielders as they played catch during warmups before each inning, waving his hat in the air, hoping for a player to throw him a baseball.

"He just truly believed the whole game, 'Dad, this time, they're going to throw me the ball,'" Jacob Crets said. "We even had a couple people around us that were like, 'Hey, if we catch it, we're going to give it to him.' He was so excited."

As the night wore on, Jacob was worried that they'd need to leave early for the baby, but he wasn't going to bring that up -- and when the ninth inning came around, their patience was rewarded in a big way.

Hudson got that ball, indeed -- and so much more than they'd ever imagined.

"We were baseball fans in general," Jacob Crets said. "Unfortunately, where we're at, we're not super close to a field, and so to be somewhere where we knew that we were pretty close, and it was going to really work. I think we were just really excited for that. But I can tell you that after catching that ball and the experience he had, we are going to be Twins fans for life, especially this little guy."