Tag: Pete Alonso

Former Florida star Pete Alonso announces 2024 charity initiative

Pete Alonso and the Alonso Foundation are pledging $1,000 to animal shelters for every home run the former Gator hits in 2024.

Former Florida Gator and current New York Mets first baseman [autotag]Pete Alonso[/autotag] has announced a charity initiative ahead of the 2024 MLB season.

On Saturday, he announced the Alonso Foundation would donate $1,000 to animal rescues for each home run he hits this season. The money will go toward the transport of animals, beds, toys and more to help them get out of kill shelters.

“Hopefully there’s a lot of homers and we get to save a lot of animals.”

Donations can be made at alonsofoundation.org.

Alonso has been one of the premiere power hitters in baseball since arriving to MLB in 2019. He’s never hit fewer than 37 home runs in a full season (16 during the COVID-shortened 2020 season). He should push for 40-plus longballs again in 2024.

This isn’t the first time Alonso has used his power for good. He’s used prize money from the Home Run Derby to donate to Wounded Warriors, which is what prompted him and his wife, Hayley, to organize their foundation.

Alonso also donated $50,000 to Tunnels to Towers, a charity that helps families of New York first responders who died on the job.

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Pete Alonso makes history with third 40-homer season

Former Florida Gators first baseman Pete Alonso has joined a historic club with his third 40-homer season in five season as big leaguer.

All [autotag]Pete Alonso[/autotag] has done since leaving Gainesville is hit home runs.

On Sunday, the former Gator and current New York Met joined a historic group after homering twice in a 6-3 win over the Seattle Mariners. Alonso has reached 40 home runs in three of his five seasons in the MLB, joining Ralph Kiner, Eddie Mathews, Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols as the fifth player to accomplish the feat in league history, according to ESPN.

Kiner and Mathrews are already Hall of Famers, and Pujols most certainly will be a first-ballot member. Alonso is joining elite company and should go down as one of the best power hitters of his generation. It hasn’t been enough to win an MVP yet, but he finished in the top 10 in 2022 (also in 2019).

“Kind of mind-baffling,” Alonso said. “Impressive names. I had no idea.”

Alonso’s contact tool is what’s holding him back from being a legitimate MVP candidate, and his .225 average this season is the worst of his career. 2024 will be his final arbitration-eligible season with the Mets, meaning he could enter free agency in the summer of 2025. The former Gator is already being paid $14.5 million this year and should get a raise over the offseason.

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Pete Alonso: It was a ‘bad brain fart’ accidentally throwing Masyn Winn’s first-ever hit into stands

He felt so bad about it.

Pete Alonso didn’t mean it, he swears.

The New York Mets first basemen seemed unaware on Friday night that an infield hit by St. Louis Cardinals prospect Masyn Winn was the first of his Major League career. And that tracks, because why would Alonso then toss it right into the stands?

Fear not. It appears the ball — which you’d normally toss to the dugout for the player to keep — was retrieved and all is well.

But the incident itself? Kind of a wild sequence of events.

First, there was Alonso tossing the ball into the stands, definitely an OOPS moment:

Then? It got retrieved after the fan finally gave it up:

Alonso felt so bad about it:

As for how Wynn felt? No hard feelings. Via MLB.com:

“I think everybody will remember their first big league hit or first big league strikeout, and I’m super excited that I got the ball back,” said Winn, who went 1-for-4 in the Cardinals’ 7-1 loss to the Mets at Busch Stadium. “I was trying not to crack up laughing as soon as I heard [Busch Stadium fans yelling for the ball to be returned]. It was very funny, and I’m really glad [she] gave it back and that I got to sign a ball for her.”

1 overlay video shows how Pete Alonso’s Home Run Derby pitcher couldn’t stop hitting the outside corner

He hit the outside corner A LOT.

Remember Dave Jauss, the New York Mets bench coach back in 2021 who threw so well at the Home Run Derby to help Pete Alonso win back-to-back titles?

Well, he wasn’t there at the 2023 derby with Alonso, who was eliminated before Vlad Guerrero Jr. won. Instead, it was Mets assistant Aaron Myers who stepped in when Alonso’s other pitcher, Mike Friedlein, who tossed to him.

And Myers was great at painting the outside corner, which was either Alonso’s strategy all along, or just weird consistency. It was better than what Adolis Garcia got!

Thanks to Pitching Ninja, we have an overlay video, along with jokes from fans:

Pete Alonso a Home Run Derby favorite heading into MLB All-Star Week

Former Gator and New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso will compete for a third Home Run Derby crown on Monday, and he enters All-Star Week as the betting favorite to come out on top.

The MLB All-Star Break is almost here and former Florida slugger Pete Alonso is the current favorite to win the 2023 Home Run Derby, according to FanDuel.

Alonso’s +300 odds narrowly edge out Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. +350, and the White Sox’s Luis Robert Jr. is the next closest at +400. The rest of the field is at +500 or worse odds, which means the money is on one of those three that come out on top. Alonso has -178 odds in the first round.

Of course, Alonso is a two-time winner at the derby, having won it as a rookie in 2019 and again after COVID in 2021. He fell in the semifinals against Seattle’s Julio Rodriguez a year ago, but FanDuel thinks Alonso will get some revenge in the opening-round rematch set for Monday.

As far as prop bets go, Alonso over Robert in the final is the favorite at +850, and the former Gator has the second-best odds (+340) to hit the longest home run of the night; Guerrero (+240) is the favorite. The over/under for total home runs is set at 274.5 (-113).

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Former Gator Pete Alonso competing in 2023 Home Run Derby

Gator Nation will be cheering on Pete Alonso once again this All-Star Break as the former Florida first baseman goes for a third crown at the Home Run Derby.

The quest for the three-Pete is back on!

Former Gator and current New York Met [autotag]Pete Alonso[/autotag] is set to compete in yet another Home Run Derby and is seeking a third crown at the event. Alonso won the 2019 and 2021 derbies, beating Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Trey Mancini, respectively.

He won both final rounds with a score of 23-22, but Julio Rodriguez’s 31 homers in the 2022 semifinals knocked Alonso out. The event was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alonso already holds the record for most home runs all-time in the event with 174 big flies. He will rematch Rodriguez (Mariners) in the opening round and face the winner of Mookie Betts (Dodgers) and Guerrero Jr. (Blue Jays) if he advances.

On the other side of the bracket are Randy Arozarena (Rays), Adolis Garcia (Rangers), Luis Robert Jr. (White Sox), and Adley Rutschman (Orioles).

The event will air on ESPN exclusively Monday at 8 p.m. EDT, while ESPN will deliver a Statcast-focused alternate feed. ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes and the ESPN App will all broadcast the derby as well.

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Pete Alonso’s exhausted reaction during Mets game perfectly summed up New York’s disastrous season

We get it, Pete. We get it.

New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso looks like he’s just about had it with how his team’s season is going during a game on Friday night.

The Mets are in the midst of a nightmarish season, one that started with them as World Series contenders and sits with them as one of baseball’s biggest 2023 disappointments.

During Friday night’s home tilt against the San Francisco Giants, the Mets led 4-2 in the game until catcher Patrick Bailey blasted a homer and gave San Francisco a 5-4 lead in the top of the eighth inning.

That score would hold, putting the Mets at a tough 36-46 record for the year as June closes.

Once Bailey hit the homer, Alonso couldn’t hide his frustration at the blown lead… and likely at the whole New York season in general.

The game camera caught Alonso close his eyes, throw his head back and seemingly deliver a deep sigh of exhaustion before refocusing himself for the game.

Alonso also cracked one of his bats in half after the fifth inning, so it was just not a good night for him in general.

Can you blame him? Alonso is an excellent player who, like many on the Mets’ roster, really deserves a lot more than how this season has gone for his team.

Unless things turn around dramatically for New York, Alonso’s moments of frustration probably aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Pete Alonso’s ‘Throw it again!’ taunt to Braves got thrown back in his face by Tyler Matzek

This backfired badly.

This sometimes happens with trash talk.

You chirp at an opponent, it’s a great piece of taunting … but then it completely backfires.

That was the case for Pete Alonso on Tuesday night. After hitting a mammoth home run off Bryce Elder against the Atlanta Braves, cameras and mics caught him yelling, “THROW IT AGAIN! THROW IT AGAIN, PLEASE!” at Elder. Whew!

Good taunt! Except that … when the Mets’ Drew Smith threw a slider that led to Marcell Ozuna tying the game, Braves pitcher Tyler Matzek yelled something from the dugout.

Want to guess what that was?

Yep, that whole thing backfired:

Former Gators slugger Pete Alonso on historic HR pace in 2023

Will a former Gators slugger be the next to hit 60 home runs in a season? He’s still on pace to do so after 53 games, but there’s a lot of season left!

If there is one thing that Plant High School in Tampa is known for it’s producing power-hitting lefties that end up playing for the University of Florida.

Senior (and future Gator) Robert Satin recently finished up his senior year with three career home runs, but the names most fans have heard of are none other Jac Caglianone and [autotag]Pete Alonso[/autotag].

Caglianone is in the process of rewriting Florida’s history books as he adds to his program-record 28-home run total throughout the postseason, and Alonso is on his own historic pace with 20 homers through 53 games. Just one year after Aaron Judge took the baseball world by storm, Alonso is flirting with a repeat (or better) year.

While it may sound silly to suggest that New York baseball fans are in store for another 60-homer season, the numbers back it up. He’s hitting a home run every 11.4 plate appearances this season and is averaging just over four plate appearances a game.

Alonso has played 161, 57, 152 and 160 games in each of his four seasons as a pro ball player, which means he likely has 100-105 more games in him this year, assuming he stays healthy. At 4.3 plate appearances per game, he’ll likely step up to the plate between 430 and 452 more times this season.

At his current pace, Alonso would finish the season with 59-60 homers, and that number could go up if he plays a couple of games more than expected. Alonso isn’t much of a contact guy, but the ball goes far when he does connect.

His career .259 average and .348 on-base percentage aren’t great, but he leads all of baseball with 166 home runs and 426 runs batted since joining the Mets in 2019.

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How Pete Alonso’s urge to poop led to a memorable home run

We’ve all been there, Pete.

We’ve all found ourselves in a situation where we’ve had to rush to the restroom.

It’s just that, in most cases, it doesn’t happen in the middle of an at-bat in a Major League Baseball game.

That’s nightmare situation apparently happened to New York Mets star first baseman Pete Alonso during a game against the Cincinnati Reds on May 10 at Great American Ballpark.

In an interview with Foul Territory, Alonso said he “mistimed” his pregame coffee.

“Middle of the first inning, I’m like, ‘goodness gracious, this is not good,'” he said.

Alonso then came to the plate in the top of the second, and the situation was really becoming dire.

“I said, ‘I don’t care where this pitch is, this at-bat is ending first pitch because I need to go,” Alonso said.

Luckily for the slugger and the Mets, that first pitch was a hanging slider that, to put it in Alonso’s own words, was “deposited in the seats.'”

That was one of his MLB-leading 19 homers this season, but unlike the others, this one wasn’t followed by high-fives from his teammates or a celebration at the plate. In case it wasn’t clear how uncomfortable he was, just look at the photo above from Alonso’s ensuing home run trot.

“As soon as I touch home plate, it’s straight to the bathroom.”

It was the best-case scenario for Alonso, and he said he’s not sure what he would have done if he had to become a base-runner, even saying that he may have opted to get himself picked off on purpose.

One thing’s for certain, though: Alonso made the most of a potentially dire (yet hilarious) situation.

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