CLEVELAND — At the most important moment of their season, down a run in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and two outs, as fans rose and screamed and prayed, as the tension threatened to overwhelm nearly everyone present, a familiar refrain wafted over the Guardians’ public-address system: “Are you ready, kids? Aye-aye, Captain! I can’t hear you!”
They sang along, the 36,483 in the stands and the one approaching the plate, the one who said he chose the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song as his walk-up music because “I have a big body, but deep inside I feel like a kid.” And then Oscar González, the 24-year-old right fielder who grew up watching the cartoon in Sabana Grande de Palenque, a town on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, put on a show.
He took Yankees righty Clarke Schmidt’s first pitch inside for a ball. González fouled off the second one, and then the third. The fourth one—the fourth straight slider—kissed the outside corner of the strike zone. González lined it into left field to score two runs, end the game, 6–5, and give Cleveland a 2–1 lead in the best-of-five American League Division Series.
