Todd Frazier’s first home game at Yankee Stadium will be impossible for him to forget. The New Jersey native’s first at-bat will remain impossible for him to believe.
In the second inning of Tuesday’s 4-2 win over the Reds, Frazier was set up for an incredible introduction, walking to the plate — accompanied by Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon” — with the bases loaded and no outs.
Frazier hit the ball hard, driving in Matt Holliday for the game’s first run, but it found shortstop Jose Peraza who started a 6-6-3-3-5-6 triple play, completed when Didi Gregorius got caught in a rundown between second and third.
Frazier became the first Yankee to hit into a triple play since Sept. 27, 2011.
“That’s got to be a record,” said Frazier, who went 1-for-2 with a walk. “It’s funny to laugh about it now, but at the time I was a little upset. … Brett Gardner was laughing at me, and I think somebody asked for the ball so they could have it.
“Hopefully that doesn’t ever happen again.”
Before his debut, Frazier said he was excited to play so close to home but was also anxious, knowing he would hear his name in the famous roll call for the first time.
“I was the most nervous for that,” said Frazier, standing beside his 3-year-old son, Blake, also sporting a Frazier jersey. “I was asking everybody what to do. I couldn’t think of anything … and I kind of gave that Shooter McGavin thing from ‘Happy Gilmore.’ ”
After commuting from his hometown of Toms River, which he helped make famous as part of the 1998 Little League World Series champions, Frazier put on pinstripes for the first time, the past gently tugging at his new uniform.
On a TV in his new clubhouse, Frazier watched the Cubs battle the White Sox, his team one week ago. In the visitor’s clubhouse were the Reds, with whom Frazier spent his first five big-league seasons.
The Yankee Stadium seats were packed with more powerful pangs of nostalgia, filled by his parents and brothers, former Little League coaches and high school teammates, along with hundreds of Toms River supporters crossing the Hudson.
Frazier never forgot the community that followed him, long before he was a 12-year-old standing next to Derek Jeter at the old Yankee Stadium.
“Everybody in Toms River loves the Yankees,” Frazier’s brother, Jeff, said. “Everybody’s pulling for him.”
For now, the third baseman will continue making the 85-mile drive for home games, but the 31-year-old plans to find somewhere to live closer to the George Washington Bridge. On a long homestand, Frazier knows the drive would probably become a “pain in the butt.”
Off days with his family, though, will never grow old. The pinstripes will never become stale.
“It’s truly an honor to play here,” Frazier said. “Your mindset changes like that [joining a playoff contender]. It feels like Day 1 again right after spring training. It’s pretty much my first at-bat for the rest of my life, if you want the truth. This is pretty cool.”
It’s even better than cool, his father, Charlie, said.
“It’s kind of surreal.”



