The minor-league ballpark in Montgomery, Ala., is built next to a historic rail station, and freight trains still roll by during games. Back when the park opened in 2004, the mayor said he would give $1,000 out of his own pocket to any Montgomery Biscuits player who hit a passing train with a home run during a game. Montgomery has a new mayor these days, and Courtney Hawkins plays for a visiting team, but the White Sox prospect ought to put in a call to ol' Bobby Bright and see if the offer still stands.
Hawkins unloaded for a home run Sunday that hit the top of one of those trains, a freight headed east, possibly to Detroit, Virginia or even as far away as Montreal. Hawkins, an outfielder for Double-A Birmingham, would settle for Chicago.
Here's the homer:
It was the fifth home run this season for the No. 9 prospect for the White Sox:
From MiLB.com:
"You can actually hear it," Hawkins said of the train. "People let me know real quick. I wasn't actually trying to hit it, but when it left the bat, you can hear everybody say, 'Hit the train! hit the train!' It was pretty cool. It was one of those feelings, you know when you make hard contact. The last time I hit anything was maybe [at Mary Carroll] High School at Cabaniss Field [in Corpus Christi, Texas]."
The homer was Hawkins' fifth of the season and the 51st of his Minor League career but the first that has struck a moving mode of transportation.
Isn't there an apocryphal story about a legendary slugger hitting a home run that left the ballpark and landed in the back of a moving truck and that truck traveled a thousand miles before stopping? And that truck driver turned out to be Mike Trout's grandfather? It didn't appear that Hawkins' blast landed in the train, so the chances of it being delivered to Montreal and somehow poured into the foundation of a new ballpark for a major-league team are remote. Still, it's a neat home run.
