As told by Colby Woodmansee
I’d been on the right side of a walk-off home run a few times throughout my baseball career, from little league up through high school. But at those levels they wouldn’t let your teammates meet you at home plate, and what’s the fun in a walk-off if you can’t celebrate with the guys that helped your moment happen?
So when I arrived at Arizona State, I’d often envision myself step into the batter's box, game on the line, and watch as the ball would move from the barrel of my bat over the outfield wall. I'd celebrate as I rounded the bases and meet my team at home plate.
One day, I'd always think, that time will come.
My swing feels terrible the whole week leading into the opening weekend. I’m hitting in the cages after practices, doing anything and everything I can to figure what I’m doing wrong. This is going to be a bad weekend to start the year.
And on top of my offensive struggles, Feb. 13 isn't simply opening night for the 2015 season. It’s the beginning of a new era for the Sun Devil Baseball program, the first game back at Phoenix Muni and the first one under our new head coach, Tracy Smith. And we’re taking on preseason top-five Oklahoma State. There’s a different buzz in the air, and we can all feel it.
I’m hitting in the eighth spot and I strike out looking in my first at-bat in the second inning. Great start to the year. Then two innings later I knock a single through the left side to drive in our first run of the year. Things are looking better.
After we take a two-run lead, OSU scores three runs in the next two frames to move ahead, 3-2. I pop up to the first baseman to lead off the sixth and strike out swinging with the bases loaded in the seventh. Things are looking bleak again.
Thankfully Johnny [Sewald] singles and Jordan [Aboites] follows with a double in the eighth to tie things up for us heading into the ninth, and now it’s time for the best closer in school history, Ryan Burr, to keep the Cowboys off the board.
Burr strands two on base in the top of the frame and we go down in order in the bottom. Free baseball in our first game of the year.
I knew I was due to lead off the bottom of the 10th, so I’m thinking if Burr gets through this inning…
‘Wouldn’t it be crazy if I hit a walk-off?’
The first batter in the 10th walks and then steals second. Will I still get my chance? Burr gets the next guy out on a line drive to center field, but the lead runner moves to third with just one out. Maybe it’s not meant to be. Swinging strikeout. Swinging strikeout. On to the bottom of the 10th.
It’s my time.
First pitch he throws me a fastball, low and inside, and the umpire calls a strike. So right away I’m annoyed. Next pitch he throws me a fastball again, this time down the middle, right in my sweet spot, and I foul it off. That was my pitch and I missed it. Now I’m really annoyed.
Third pitch he hits me with a slider. Now I was horrible at hitting sliders the year before, but this ball is up in the zone a little and I’m able to make contact. It comes off the end of my bat, so I don’t think it’s going to have the distance. But it keeps going, and going, and going, and finally lands to rest a few feet beyond the left-field wall.
It doesn’t hit me until I’m rounding second.
I just hit a walk-off home run, in the first game of the season, to open our return to a fabled stadium, to welcome our new head coach, to beat a top-five team.
And the next thing I know I’m getting mobbed by my guys at home plate.
I struggled my freshmen year and was in and out of the lineup. I didn’t quite know my place yet and hadn’t fully adjusted to the college game. #WalkOffWoody, as it became referred to, has been the defining moment of my ASU career so far.
It set the tone for the entire season and gave me the confidence to begin to evolve into the player I always knew I could become: First Team All-Pac-12, a stint with Team USA over the summer, and a preseason All-American this year.
But more than individual success, the moment embodied what it means to be a part of the Sun Devil Baseball program. There’s a photo, taken along the third-base line that shows me heading home with the whole team waiting in a semicircle. The photo captures everyone’s face, everyone’s emotions. They were as much a part of the moment, from workouts in the fall to practices in January, as I was.
It’s my time because I have a group of brothers believing in me. Just look at that photo.