485-foot HRs in 2023: Giancarlo Stanton -- and this Minor Leaguer
Chandler Redmond mashed a homer Sunday that belonged not in, but over a museum.
The Double-A Springfield infielder's fourth-inning blast traveled an estimated 485 feet, flying over the Wichita Baseball Museum beyond right field and careening off the administrative building beyond Riverfront Stadium.
At the Major League level, only the Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton has hit a ball that far this season, with his April 2 moonshot. It was also just two feet short of matching the longest homer in the Minors this season, hit by Triple-A Salt Lake's Trey Cabbage in an April 18 game at Reno.
“I knew I had hit it really well. I wasn’t sure how far exactly it was going to go, but it felt like one of the best I had hit off the bat,” said Redmond, who already has a bat in Cooperstown after hitting for "the home run cycle" last August.
The 26-year-old's eighth tater of the year put the Cardinals ahead, 3-2, en route to a 7-4 victory over the Wind Surge. The homer also was Redmond’s third in as many games, closing out a strong first month of the season in which he picked up 23 RBIs in 19 games.
Redmond's already on pace to top his 2022 long ball total of 21 for Springfield. He hit 18 between Double-A and High-A Peoria in 2021 after kicking off his professional career with 12 for Rookie-level Johnson City in 2019.
And although he continues to gain power at the plate, the 485-footer did come as a bit of a surprise to Redmond and even players on the other team.
“It felt unbelievable," he said. "I had a lot of the guys from the Wind Surge come up to me when I was playing first and say, 'Man, we’ve never seen somebody hit the building before. That was pretty cool.'”