As a kid, Pete Alonso's bedtime in the summer was 9 p.m., as he recalls, but every so often, his parents would let him stay up late, and one of those special nights was on the Monday of baseball's All-Star break.
This is how he devoured the Home Run Derby annually, and what he saw on those nights sticks like flypaper to Alonso's memory. Born in 1994, Alonso vividly remembers Sammy Sosa's power in 2002, when Sosa pelted Bernie Brewer's slide. The barrage of home runs that Josh Hamilton generated in 2008, Alonso believes, has to be the greatest round of batting practice ever.