Drake Maye's Mayday Foundation rolled into Polar Park in Worcester for a charity softball game, and somehow the headline act ended up being a 48-year-old blogger in a #22 jersey. Portnoy got 'peer pressured' into the Home Run Derby — his words — and predictably could not stop tweeting about himself for the next 18 hours. The scoreboard in the background of his clips tells you it was for a good cause: 19 HR, $19,000 raised early in the night, climbing as the derby went on.
Portnoy in the Mayday jersey taking BP cuts, with the Flexcon scoreboard ticking up behind him.
Then he actually went deep. Then he went deep again. The 'toy cannon' bit is one of his oldest self-mythologizing routines, and for one night at a minor-league park, he had the receipts to back it up. By the time the totals on the board hit 55 HR and $56,500 raised, Portnoy was running a full marketing campaign on his own at-bats.
Back-to-back jacks, with the charity total climbing toward $56,500.
He capped the night with a stat-line tweet that was somehow even cockier than the swings themselves: 3-for-3, 3 HR, 'light work.' He also threw out a ceremonial first pitch in the Portnoy #22 jersey, which the Barstool main account immediately spun into a tongue-in-cheek 'haters in shambles' bit. It's a first pitch. Calm down. That's the joke.
Portnoy's own night-capper recap from Polar Park.
The other near-headline of the night was way less funny in real time: a field-stormer sprinted onto the infield and got absolutely sandwiched by the celebrity participants, with Patriots RB Rhamondre Stevenson among the guys involved in the tackle. Everyone walked away fine, but the bit on Wake Up Barstool the next morning basically wrote itself — Bill Belichick's offense almost lost its bell-cow back to a charity softball game.
The field-stormer getting wrapped up by participants at the Maye game.
Of course, Portnoy was not going to let the 3-HR night die quietly. By morning he was on Wake Up Barstool live from Chicago, doing his full 'I was a superior athlete growing up, especially in baseball' monologue, daring the haters to keep doubting him. Whether you buy the legend or not, the man went 3-for-3 with 3 bombs at an actual minor-league park for a Patriots QB's charity. For one night, the toy cannon got to be real.
Portnoy on Wake Up Barstool, doubling down on his self-mythologized baseball resume.