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Giancarlo Stanton Has a Message for the Kids After His Lack of Hustle

Yankees slugger happy it all worked out.

Kyle Koster

Giancarlo Stanton vows to learn from his mistake.
Giancarlo Stanton vows to learn from his mistake. / YES

Cam Schlittler's historic postseason debut will be what everyone remembers from the Yankees' Game 3 victory over the Red Sox in the teams' do-or-die contest reminiscent of similar postseason clashes in 2003 and 2004. The rookie was brilliant, twirling eight scoreless innings while striking out 12. New York got all the offense they needed in a four-run fourth inning and are now on to an ALDS match-up against the Blue Jays.

Giancarlo Stanton, who hit a double in the second inning, is thankful his mental mistake of assuming his blast to left-center was headed out of the yard will be easily forgotten. And he was quick to take accountability for not hustling out of the box during a post-game interview in the celebratory locker room.

"Thank goodness for that bonehead play that the team was resilient enough and Cam was resilient enough to go out and it didn't mess up the chemistry or the moment," Stanton told YES.

"Kids at home, don't do that," Stanton added. "Future opponents, please do that."

It's great to see a teachable moment given its value.

Stanton won't be caught watching his lasers from the batter's box going forward and youth players can no longer tell their coaches they learned it from watching him.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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