Erik Boland: Angels catcher Logan O'Hoppe, a Long Island native, hits his first Yankee Stadium home run
Angels catcher Logan O'Hoppe, a Sayville native, reacts after his fifth-inning home run against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The gut-wrenching loss took away from the moment a bit for Logan O’Hoppe.
But just a bit.
And, really, bigger picture, not that much at all.
O’Hoppe, the Angels catcher who grew up a Yankees fan in Sayville, has regularly played in front of a phalanx of family and friends at the Stadium since 2023.
But he had never before homered at the ballpark, a ballpark he grew up cheering on the Yankees in his younger years, a ballpark he earlier in the week he called “special.”
Never before, that is, until Wednesday night.
The Angels catcher, leading off the fifth inning, crushed a 1-and-0, 95.5-mph fastball from Luis Gil 427 feet to left-center for his first homer of the season and career home run No. 54.
“You want it to happen in a win,” a still emotional O’Hoppe told Newsday in the hallway outside the Angels clubhouse after the Yankees walked off his team, 5-4, on Jose Caballero’s two-run single in the ninth. “Selfishly, that was one of the coolest baseball moments of my life. It meant a lot to my family. A little bit of a monkey off my back, coming here for however many years and wanting a moment like that. It was really, really special.”
O’Hoppe, the Angels everyday catcher, came into the night off to a slow start at the plate, hitting .216 with a .574 OPS in 18 games (though he did have a more than respectable .339 on-base percentage). After grounding out sharply against Gil in his first at-bat, in the second inning, O’Hoppe, who said he’s been doing some extra work with first-year Angels hitting coach, and former big-leaguer, Brady Anderson, hammered his homer into the bleachers in left-center.
“It felt good,” O’Hoppe said with a smile of the blast that came off his bat at 114.3 mph. “That was one of the hardest balls, I think, I’ve hit in my career. Been working with Brady Anderson on a few things in the cage. We even swung last night after the game and the adjustment popped up in the game today. It means a lot that he’s in my corner helping me out. Appreciate all he’s done for not only me but a lot of guys in this offense.”
Getting the souvenir back proved not at all difficult as a fan, per the somewhat silly “tradition,” lifted directly from Chicago’s Wrigley Field of throwing back opposing team’s home runs, tossed the baseball onto the field.
The ball, O’Hoppe said, will go on “right on the mantle” of his parents’ house in Sayville. O’Hoppe’s parents, Michael and Angela, were in attendance Wednesday, along his girlfriend and some assorted “friends from high school,” but not nearly the throng that has watched him play at Yankee Stadium in the past.
And Yankee Stadium relates to “the monkey” O’Hoppe referenced. Though pumped to play each of his previous 11 career games here, most of them had not produced many memorable moments of note, certainly nothing compared to Wednesday night’s.
Going into Wednesday, O’Hoppe was 7-for-40 (.175) in those games at the Stadium with a .492 OPS.
Wednesday’s blast pulled the Angels within 3-2 and helped ignite a three-run inning. Mike Trout’s fourth home run of the series later in the inning, a two-run shot, put the Angels ahead, 4-3.
But a misplayed pop-up in the bottom of the ninth with Jordan Romano, who going back to his years with the Blue Jays almost never pitched well against the Yankees, on the mound sparked the rally that ended with a sliding Austin Wells barely avoiding O’Hoppe’s tag at the plate.
Still, even that kind of ending couldn’t detract from the night's meaning.
“You came here growing up and you just pictured doing things like that at a pretty young age,” O’Hoppe said in enumerating the reasons Wednesday night’s homer ranked as high as it did on his “coolest” moments scale. “Another part of it, and I’ve never said this before, and it just hit me now talking about it, there are a lot of people . . . that told you you couldn’t do it coming up and growing up. Even at a young age, I experienced that. I can remember someone in the town telling my parents, ‘He’s not going to play for the Yankees one day.’ I may not be playing for them, but hitting a homer here felt like a deep-rooted comment from a young age that was definitely fulfilled. I never do it to prove people wrong, but it’s definitely a thought that comes to mind when I think about it.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
