Home for the Hollidays: Jackson returns to old stomping grounds
Youngster laces RBI triple in win with father, Matt, among friends and family in attendance
Manny Randhawa
@MannyOnMLBDENVER -- Mary O¡¯Callaghan doesn¡¯t come to the ballpark very often anymore. But the 86-year-old wouldn¡¯t miss Friday night¡¯s game at Coors Field for the world.
¡°This is the most excited I¡¯ve ever been to come to a ballgame,¡± she said. ¡°It just brings me to tears.¡±
With that statement, O¡¯Callaghan was truly saying something. After all, she served as the attendant for the room reserved for players¡¯ families at Coors for 20 years.
Little did she know that two decades after she first met a baby named Jackson Holliday, he would be stepping into the batter¡¯s box in the same ballpark as a Major League player.
¡°To see Jackson playing on that field as a little boy with that red bat,¡± O¡¯Callaghan said, ¡°and now he¡¯s back.¡±
On the field where he was lifted up at age three and held by his father, Matt, on the night the Rockies won their only National League pennant in 2007, Holliday smashed a triple off the right-field wall in the ninth inning of the Orioles¡¯ 5-3 victory over Colorado on Friday.
Jackson had come full-circle. For his father, along with his mother, Leslee, and a group of some 30 friends and family in attendance to witness the moment, it was surreal.
¡°It doesn¡¯t seem like that long ago that Jackson was running around here playing Wiffle ball,¡± Matt said before the game. ¡°And now he¡¯s getting a chance to play on this field. I¡¯m excited to watch him.¡±
Jackson¡¯s dad had an illustrious MLB career that began in Colorado in 2004, when Jackson was about five months old. In ¡¯07, Matt finished runner-up in National League MVP voting after leading the league with a .340 batting average, 216 hits, 50 doubles, 137 RBIs and 386 total bases.
Jackson doesn¡¯t remember those times all that much, and that¡¯s understandable for someone who was that young back then. Still, it was special for him to step back onto the field at Coors on Friday.
¡°I remember vaguely, moments here and there, the playoffs,¡± Jackson said. ¡°It¡¯s funny because we were playing [at Dodger Stadium] yesterday and we heard ¡®MVP¡¯ chants for Shohei Ohtani. I kind of remember that when my dad was here.¡±
Although Jackson said he doesn¡¯t remember all that much of his famous Wiffle ball exploits, ¡°Grandma Mary¡± could tell you some stories.
¡°I shagged a lot of balls in the hallway by the family room,¡± O'Callaghan said.
Leslee remembers a few instances when those balls did some real damage, a preview of what was to come as Jackson grew.
¡°He could hit pretty well as a little boy,¡± she said. ¡°And he would bust lights out. And everyone would just look the other way because they like him so much. They thought he was so cute.¡±
Jackson might still have a baby face, but he¡¯s all grown up now, and the former No. 1 overall prospect has been through the growing pains of making the jump from the Minors to the Majors.
When he was called up for his much-anticipated MLB debut on April 10, Jackson got off to a rough start at the plate. He went 2-for-34 before being optioned to Triple-A Norfolk. He was back in the big leagues on July 31, and launched his first Major League home run. He belted four more home runs over his next nine games.
Jackson then hit .172/.213/.224 in 17 games heading into Friday¡¯s series opener against Colorado.
A major reason the 20-year-old prodigy has been able to handle the pressures of being a top prospect, and then the expectations upon being called up to the Major Leagues, is that he was basically born in a ballpark and has been around the game since his infancy.
It all began in Colorado.
¡°This particular place is tender to my heart,¡± Leslee said. ¡°Because this is where I believe Jackson¡¯s dream of playing baseball someday really started to grow.¡±
Leslee and Matt made it a point to have Jackson be around his father as much as possible even though his job kept him away from home for a good part of the year. Matt has an idea of how that led to the full-circle moment on Friday.
¡°I don¡¯t know that that¡¯s the only reason,¡± Matt said, ¡°but I assume that the fact that [Jackson and his brother Ethan] were with me and on the field and around great players and got a chance to see behind the curtains. ¡ I think it made that dream more tangible, more realistic.¡±
As they say, time flies. But somehow, at the same time, it doesn¡¯t. Perhaps Leslee described Friday¡¯s experience best for the Hollidays:
¡°Time sort of stands still in baseball.¡±