CLEVELAND — When Mike Shannon was broadcasting Cardinals baseball for 50 years, he used to tell a story from one of the scariest moments of his playing career. During a home game in St. Louis against the Dodgers on a hot summer day in the mid-1960s, he went to the plate to face a living legend, Don Drysdale, and the dirt in the batter’s box was hard as a rock.
Shannon kicked and kicked the dirt with his spikes trying to dig in, then he looked up and saw Drysdale standing at the front of the mound staring at him with a scowl on his face. Fearing a first pitch would drill him in the ear, Shannon dropped to his hands and knees, then pushed the dirt to where it was, repeatedly yelling to Drysdale that he was sorry.
That’s the kind of fear pitchers used to command.
You hit a home run off the great Bob Gibson, Shannon’s Cardinals teammate from 1962-70, the next batter often was drilled in the back with a fastball.
It’s a good thing Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm didn’t play in that era.
The way the flashy Bahamas native celebrates all of his homers — the bat flips, the slow jog around the bases, the arm waving — he might not make it out of the ballpark alive if he did that in any other era, especially during road games.
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But in 2026, there’s no unwritten rule about players seeking attention, especially if it’s mocking an opponent, and no one in baseball has more fun than Chisholm, whose five-tool skills are complemented by showboating that’s his way of enjoying the game.
“Jazz is one of one,” shortstop Anthony Volpe said with a smile.
Amen to that.
On a ballfield, he’s what Muhammad Ali was like when the boxing great was floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee in the ring. He’s a modern-day Billy “White Shoes” Johnson, who celebrated punt returns for touchdowns in Houston Oilers games with his “Funky Chicken” dance.
Chisholm is like an old-time hockey goon who can score goals. You love him when he’s on your team and despise him when he’s the opponent.
Somehow, Chisholm outdid himself Tuesday night when he celebrated hitting a tiebreaking home run in the eighth inning of a 3-2 Yankees win over the Guardians.
By then, the two-time All-Star was on a mission to stick it to Guardians fans for some in-game mocking.
When Chisholm was up in the fifth inning with Cody Bellinger on first base and two outs, a chant broke out:
OVERRATED!
OVERRATED!
“I heard it,” Chisholm said. “I kind of loved it.”
The taunting changed his approach. He was no longer just looking to get on base to keep the inning going or hit a gap shot to put the Yankees ahead. He wanted to launch the baseball all the way to Columbus and shut everyone up.
With Guardians right-handed reliever Slade Cecconi pitching, Chisholm was behind in the count 1-2 when he got a mistake pitch, a middle-in fastball at the top of the zone.
“I got the pitch that I was looking for,” he said.
And …
“I really overswung,” he said.
The fans got to him.
“I think that’s why I overswung a lot in that at-bat,” he said.
The fans loved seeing the villain fail, but the game wasn’t over.
The game was still tied 2-2 when Chisholm led off the eighth facing Tim Herrin, who is one of the toughest lefty-on-lefty relievers in the majors.
This time he grabbed one of Aaron Judge’s bats – maybe the same one that he used one last Sunday in New York to hit a home run – figuring it woudl help him avoid overswining.
“I was like, ‘Keep your composure … don’t overswing,’” Chisholm said.
Once again, a group of fans started chanting:
OVERRATED!
OVERRATED!
“I feel like that was the loudest chants all day we heard, so I think it was great,” he said.
Chisholm quickly was down in the count 0-2, then he took a pitch that was on the corner but called a ball. The Guardians had an ABS challenge, but didn’t use it, so the at-bat continued.
Two balls evened the count, then Chisholm spoiled a pitch before taking a ball that filled the count.
“Man, good at-bat,” manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s a true tough left on left. He gets to 0-2 and he just got patient and is able to lay off some tough pitches. He doesn’t expand.
“He doesn’t try and do too much, and it probably got him back to a pitch that he could handle.”
The next pitch was a hanging slider. That’s what he was hoping for.
Chisholm took a nice uppercut swing and …
As the late, great John Sterling would say, “Swung on, there it goes. It is high, it is far … it is GONE!
Chisholm dropped Judge’s bat at his feet after his swing, then stood in the box and admired his blast until it touched down about six rows into the right-field seats.
And then Chisholm rubbed it in with a home run trot that was slower than his usual crawl around the bases. Of course, there were antics the whole way. He held out his arms wide, which was his way of saying, “Look at me!”
He pointed at the Guardians dugout. He did his little fake-handoff football move before he crossed home plate. He waved to booing fans while he headed back to his dugout.
The average home run trot in the majors takes 22 seconds. Chisholm stretched this one to 32 seconds.
“That was really for the fans,” he said with a big smile.
Chisholm embraces his bad-guy role, which now has made him a villain in at least two cities. Royals fans have loathed him since he said Kansas City got lucky winning a playoff game in Yankee Stadium in 2024.
Boone sometimes has to rein in Chisholm, who’s been kicked out of games for losing his cool on umpires.
Even though the home run trots amount to showing up opponents and Boone has old-school background as a third-generation big leaguer, he approves.
“I love them,” he said. “I really do.”
Because Chisholm’s latest was a payback, “even better,” Boone said with a smile and a nod.
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