LOS ANGELES — Max Muncy homered once during the Dodgers’ homestand last week, and his home run last Tuesday against the Seattle Mariners tied Eric Karros for most regular season home runs in Dodger Stadium history.
Muncy and Karros each hit 130 regular season homers at Chavez Ravine, but if you factor in postseason home runs too, Muncy has the edge, 137-132.
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So I asked Muncy over the weekend of all his home runs at Dodger Stadium — excluding his 18th-inning home run in Game 3 of the 2018 World Series to end the longest postseason game of all-time — was his favorite.
Muncy thought about this for a moment. First he remembered his walk-off home run on April 10 against the Texas Rangers, when he joined Don Demeter in 1959 as the only Dodger to cap off a three-homer game with a walk-off shot.
“One it’s a walk-off, two it’s the third home run of the night,” Muncy reasoned.
But after a few more moments cycling through his memories of nine seasons hitting home runs in Los Angeles, Muncy suddenly remembered another important dinger.
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On August 21, 2019, Muncy hit a walk-off home run to beat the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1 in the 10th inning at Dodger Stadium. “Max Muncy saves the Dodgers tonight,” said Joe Davis on his home run call.
This home run was hit off Toronto southpaw Tim Mayza. Of the 137 home runs Muncy has hit at Dodger Stadium, 102 have been against right-handers and 35 against left-handers.
Winning the game was nice, but off-field events were what made it special for Muncy, who was four days shy of his 29th birthday at the time.
“That one might actually be my favorite, because of the circumstances outside the field surrounding it. It was on or around my birthday,” Muncy explained. “My wife flew home to pick up the puppy we just bought. I hadn’t met the puppy yet. She came to the stadium, and that was going to be the first night that I met him.”
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That puppy is Jax, a french bulldog who was 14 weeks old at the time.
The Muncys still have Jax, now along with their three kids. But thinking back to that Wednesday night seven years ago and the ensuing few days made for a special memory.
‘We went into extra innings,” Muncy said of his 2019 home run, “and the circumstances surrounding it might be the most memorable.”
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