KANSAS CITY -- Eight years after they faced each other in high school, Chris Sale got a rematch with Andrew McCutchen in Tuesday nights All-Star Game.
This time the ball didnt travel quite as far.
Back in 2004, when Sale was a sophomore at Lakeland (Fla.) High and McCutchen was a junior at Fort Meade, McCutchen blasted a 440-foot home run off the White Sox left-hander.
Flash forward to Tuesday night in Kansas City. After he fell behind 0-2 in the count to Sale, McCutchen took a ball and lined a 1-2 pitch to left field for a single. McCutchen, who now plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates, marveled at the fact that the two had faced each other in high school and then again in the All-Star Game after never having faced each other in between.
Who would have ever thought two guys from local areas playing each other in high school would one day face each other in the All-Star Game? McCutchen said. By the time you get accustomed to him, youre down two strikes. I thought he was going to get me. That slider is pretty good. It was all right.
Sale wasnt as expansive on the home run, but he remembers it well. A story in Sales hometown paper, the Naples Daily News, said scouts claimed McCutchens homer might have been the longest hit in prep baseball in all of Florida that year.
He got me in high school. I think it might have been the farthest ball hit in Winter Haven, Sale said with a smile. Yeah, he got me.
MLB
Said McCutchen: High school kind of doesnt count because we use metal bats, but it was pretty far. A pretty good one. That home run, that was fun.