Greatest Moments in Marlins History: #24 Broken Scoreboard

May 21, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton (27) connects for a grand slam during the fourth inning against the Colorado Rockies at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome back to the Greatest Moments in Marlins History. We have seen a lot of records broken on this countdown, but moment 24 is another kind of broken all in its own. In 2012 Giancarlo Stanton didn’t break a record, he broke something else completely. He broke the score board in left field with a grand slam ball!

On May 21, 2012 the Marlins were playing the Colorado Rockies at Marlins Park. It was the bottom of the 4^th and the Marlins were trailing the Rockies 4-1. The Marlins would cut the lead to 4-2 with a Jose Reyes single that would score Mark Buehrle. Hanley Ramirez and Austin Kearns would also get on base with walks to load the bases for Giancarlo. On the mound during all of this was Jamie Moyer. The 49 year-old pitcher wanted to prove that he still had something in the tank. Unfortunately, he was going to face one of the hottest batters that month. I wonder who was going to win this?

The first pitch Stanton saw was called a ball. The next pitch Stanton saw he put some nice wood on it but sent it foul. Pitch number 3 would be called ball 2. Pitch number 4 Stanton thought it was a good pitch and took a mighty swing but fouled it off. Pitch number 5 I guessed looked as good as pitch four so Stanton took another mighty whack, but the same foul result. Pitch 6 Stanton would lay off for ball 3 and the count was full. Stanton stepped out of the box and took a deep breath and stepped right back in. Jamie then let the ball rip, and Stanton let his bat do the talking as he sent that ball flying over the left field wall for a grand slam. That is not what made this moment, though. The ball did not land in the stands at first because he hit the score board. That ball hit the score board so hard that it broke a few of the light panels in the score board. Our brand new scoreboard was damaged and shut off all by a monstrous hit by Stanton.  Now that is power.

The scoreboard was reset and went back to normal an inning later. For a while though, a ball off the bat of Stanton shut down our state-of-the-art scoreboard and that is an impressive feat. Join me tomorrow as we take a feat that is impressive for the Marlins, but not so impressive for the other team.