Prince Fielder joins father Cecil in 300 home run club
Lost in the shuffle of Alex Rodriguez’s impressive comeback, the promotion of several top prospects and the continued dominance of starting pitching around MLB has been the remarkable bounce back season of Prince Fielder.
The Texas Rangers designated hitter was a shell of himself last season before undergoing season-ending neck surgery, and there was obviously some question about how well he’d be able to come back from such an operation.
So far, he’s been really good, and the resurgence continued in Friday’s disappointing 12-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.
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Though on the wrong side of the score, Fielder picked up two more hits to raise his slashline to .346/.415/.539. The average is good for third in the American League, trailing only Miguel Cabrera and Jason Kipnis. But the true key for Fielder is the status of his power swing.
On Friday, he connected for only his second home run in June, but his 12th home run overall on the season. That’s four times the number he hit in 2014 and it keeps him on pace to hit at least 25 homers for the ninth time in his career.
Overall, the homer was Fielder’s 300th for his career, which is significant for a couple reasons. First, that’s a number only 138 hitters have reached before him. Second, one of those batters happens to be his father, Cecil Fielder, which makes them the second father-son duo to each reach 300.
The other? Barry and Bobby Bonds, who connected for 762 and 332, respectively.
Obviously, the Fielders won’t reach the Bonds’ collective numbers, but it’s still a cool distinction that one would hope they’ll celebrate and be proud of. Given the rocky history they’ve had, perhaps it will even give them greater reason to connect and work toward solidifying their relationship.
As we’ve learned in recent years, the two had a falling around the time Prince signed his first professional contract and reached the point where Prince would have his father removed from the stadium if he found out he was there. Things seemed to be improved a couple years ago when they shared a friendly exchange in Miami, so perhaps they have bridged that gap privately.
As for future milestones, with another 20 home runs Prince will officially pass his father on the all-time list With another 40, he’ll move into the top 100. All of those milestones are well within reach as long as Prince stays healthy.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
