NEW YORK — Bobby Witt Jr. walked into the batting cage at Fenway Park and launched one baseball over the Green Monster, and then another. He wasn’t yet the superstar shortstop of the Kansas City Royals. He wasn’t a major-league prospect. He couldn’t even vote.
It was the summer of 2016. Witt was 16 years old. And, for a day, he was a member of the New York Yankees.
“I still have that hat to this day,” Witt recalled Tuesday, smiling in the visitors clubhouse at Yankee Stadium.
It’s possible, and perhaps likely, that Witt, 24, will wear only a Royals uniform for the rest of his career.
In February 2024, he signed a contract extension with the team that will be worth $288.7 million if he plays through the full 11-year deal, which contains multiple player and team options. He’s not just one of the best young players in the game, having finished second in the American League MVP vote and making his first All-Star team last season. He’s the face of the Royals and perhaps their best player since Hall of Famer George Brett.
But Witt remembers fondly the day he played for the Yankees’ scout team, donning navy and gray against a Boston Red Sox scout team long before Kansas City would draft him No. 2 in 2019.
“I was like, ‘Wow, this is sweet,’” he said.
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Scout games are comprised of the best amateur players from particular regions. Most of the players are juniors or seniors in high school. Witt was just about to become a sophomore.
The Yankees invited Witt to play for them because of the ties they had to his family. Yankees Northeast area scout Matt Hyde is friends with Witt’s father, Bobby Witt Sr., who played parts of 16 seasons in the majors and is now a baseball agent at Octagon. Hyde also was familiar with Witt’s grandfather, a firefighter in his Massachusetts hometown.
Witt Sr. had told Hyde that his parents rarely got to see their grandson play since he was being raised in Texas. So Hyde invited the youngest Witt to play in the scout game at Fenway Park, which would allow his grandparents to finally see him on the field.
“It was just a great experience for him,” Bobby Witt Sr. said in a phone interview Tuesday night.
At first, Witt Jr. was almost hesitant. His father asked him if he wanted to play in a game for the Yankees, but he grew up a fan of the Red Sox and Dustin Pedroia. Then his dad told him it would be at Fenway.
“I’m in,” Witt Jr. told his father.
Plus, Witt Jr. actually idolized Derek Jeter, too, growing up. He wore No. 17 during his freshman year of high school because Pedroia wore No. 15 and Jeter wore No. 2. He had posters of both on a wall of his childhood bedroom.
Witt said he considered Jeter a “role model.”
“It was how he played the game,” Witt said. “He was out there every day. And the way he carried himself on and off the field. I know how it is now being a big leaguer and how hard it is. I can’t imagine what it’s like in New York. And he was always a good guy on the field and off. Played the game the right way. In those clutch moments, it was always him coming up. In the postseason, he did what he did. It was really cool to see what he did for New York.”
The teen players worked out for scouts at nearby Bentley University the day before the game. It was Hyde’s first time seeing Witt play. He watched for a while and turned to Damon Oppenheimer, the Yankees’ vice president of domestic amateur scouting.
“(Witt) might be the best player here,” Hyde said.
“I think you’re right,” Oppenheimer said.
Witt ended up pitching an inning and getting one at-bat. Batting practice was what he remembers most. He had been to a few games at Fenway Park as a fan. But having a chance to play there blew him away.
“It was cool, but I wore the Yankees’ uniform,” he said. “It was funny, but it was cool.”
He said it felt like he was part of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry for a day. His teammates on the Yankees were mostly Yankees fans from New York and New Jersey. The players on Boston’s team were mostly from Massachusetts and the surrounding area. As a kid, his favorite movie was “Fever Pitch,” which features a playoff series between the Yankees and Red Sox.
“You know the history between the teams,” he said. “I knew it growing up.”
As Bobby Witt Sr. watched, he remembered when he played at Fenway Park as an amateur, too. The father played for the United States Olympic team in 1984, and they played an exhibition there.
“I was just excited to see him out there,” the dad said. “He was one of the youngest kids in that game. For him to go out there and just compete, his mentality was never that he was the smallest guy out there or the youngest guy. He was competing like the rest of these guys, just like everyone else. It was an exciting time for me.”
After the game, they all went back to Witt Jr.’s grandparents’ house. They were hardcore Red Sox fans. They joked that he wasn’t allowed to wear the Yankees hat in their home. Now it’s one of his prized possessions.
“It’s stowed away,” he said, “hidden somewhere.”
(Photo: Wendell Cruz / Imagn Images)
