Tuesday night was a career-defining night for one Oracle Park legend. Oh, and it was a pretty good night for Mike Yastrzemski as well.
San Francisco native and McCovey Cove kayaker Cole Ruud was the lucky recipient of Yastrzemski's eighth-inning, go-ahead grand slam ball.
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Before snagging Yastrzemski's home run ball, Ruud came up short in retrieving Steven Duggar's splash hit home run in the bottom of the second inning.
That guy with the net? That's none other than "Joe Dirt," a legend out in the cove, according to Ruud. Losing out on the first home run ball to Mr. Dirt, Ruud explained what happened that resulted in him coming up just short.
“I was kind of drifting in towards the foul pole," Ruud told 95.7 The Game's "The Morning Roast" "I like to keep myself parallel to the wall there so that I can go towards the ball. Duggar’s hit goes, I see the crowd going crazy, the cannons shoot off before the ball even clears the fence and from down in the cove looking up, I lost the ball in the water. I see it when it’s 10 feet from hitting me."
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"It almost freaking hit me, the ball missed me by like eight feet probably, it goes right behind my head. Immediately, I'm like ‘do I jump in?’ I froze and didn’t know what to do so I tried to back up into it."
"The guy on the port walk, his name is Joe Dirt, he’s been a local there for years and years. He’s gotten many home run balls, this isn’t his first rodeo. He was a master with that. He pulled it right in, right behind me."
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Fortunately for Cole, he had a shot at redemption in the bottom of the eighth inning. Still fending off challengers such as "Joe Dirt," Ruud ended up with the ball after learning his lesson from six innings prior.
"I see the ball come soaring way over the wall, it goes way out in the cove, like Barry Bonds territory. I am hauling, and I see this guy Joe Dirt with the fishing pole and he’s casting his line out to the ball.
"He’s got his net and I'm hauling, thinking ‘if this guy gets this ball, I'm sinking. There’s no way I'm coming back from this.' He missed it by about a foot, and once I saw he missed it, I just cruised in, snagged the ball and just straight up started screaming. I just blacked out.”
From here on out, McCovey Cove will forever be synonymous with legends like Barry Bonds, Mike Yastrzemski, Cole Ruud and Joe Dirt.