All Hail Nolan Jones, and Is Brian Snitker Headed to the Hall of Fame?

Well, uh, yeah, that happened. WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL debuted at No. 2 on the New York Times bestseller list. It was beaten out only by the longtime No. 1 bestselling book Outlive, which I have not yet read but I understand is about the science of living longer. I get that more people want to live longer than love baseball.

Still, my cup runneth over.

As for yesterday’s WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL moment, let’s go to Colorado, where not too many such moments happen these days.

Nolan Jones is a 25-year-old rookie for the Rockies — he was a top 50 prospect for Cleveland back a couple of years ago because of his natural power, speed and ability to draw walks. But last year, the Guardians traded him to Colorado for a younger prospect, Juan Brito. My guess is Cleveland worried that Jones simply didn’t put bat on ball enough to be a valuable player. He does strike out a lot.

But the power … it’s real. Yesterday, he mashed a 450-plus-foot home run off Jameson Taillon (Jones’ fifth 450-foot homer of the season), and it was one of those home runs I love because it just kept going and going and going.

There are different kinds of long home runs. Some are rockets that leave everyone in the park frozen — those are awesome. Some are majestic home runs you want to salute. And some, like this one from Nolan Jones, just keep on sailing so much farther than you could ever expect.

This is a trait of Nolan Jones home runs, by the way.

Most 450-plus-foot home runs this season (season home run total in parentheses):

8: Ronald Acuña Jr. (37)

6: Shohei Ohtani (44) and Austin Riley (35)

5: Matt Olson (51) and Nolan Jones (16)

Yes, almost one-third of the home runs Nolan Jones has hit in 2023 traveled 450 feet or more. Incredible.

And here’s something else that’s interesting about Jones: