Just received this picture from my friend Dave, a fellow NH Grizzlies parent. It’s a picture of the Grizzlies surrounding my son, Brandon congratulating him on the three-run homer he hit at a baseball tournament in Connecticut last weekend. He’s the one with the big smile on his face in the middle. His dad (myself - not pictured) was the one jumping six feet in the air while getting high-fives from the parents, with a bigger smile on his face.

Brandon’s hit homeruns on his school team, but this is his first, and the team’s first one over a fence this year. Louis “meep meep” Tarantino blasted an in-the-park homerun in the last Connecticut tournament, which was really an in-the-next-park shot. But, there was no fence. Louis jump put the pedal to the metal and easily circled the bases.

As his coach Aaron Jackson handed the ball to me in the bleachers afterwards, he said, “I’ve been waiting for him to do that for two years.” The ball bounced off the left-field bluff in the background. It was pushing close to a 375 to 400-foot shot.

The funny thing here is that his friend Kruz told him to use his brand new DeMarini drop-three bat. Kruz is a power hitter as well. Brandon did the breaking in honors and hit the first homerun off the bat.

Nice picture Dave. Thanks! And, thanks Kruz!

-Bob Hammerstrom

Tags: aaron jackson, baseball tournament, bat, Brandon Hammerstrom, branford, ct, demarini, homerun, kamaridis, kruz, louis, north, sportsplex, tarantino