{"id":16033,"date":"2025-05-10T13:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T13:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/16033\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T13:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T13:27:13","slug":"several-mlb-legends-are-coming-to-utah-to-hit-a-bunch-of-dingers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/16033\/","title":{"rendered":"Several MLB ‘legends’ are coming to Utah to hit a bunch of dingers"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOUTH JORDAN \u2014 Utah might not have a Major League Baseball team \u2014 yet \u2014 but it’s about to get a blast of the big league stardom.<\/p>\n

MLB announced Friday that The Ballpark at America First Square will host the finals of its Home Run Derby X<\/a> series on Sept. 19-20. The two-day event, described as a home run derby “with defense,” will bring a squad of MLB “legends” and top softball players who will compete for a $200,000 prize.<\/p>\n

Former big league sluggers like Manny Ramirez, Ryan Howard and Andruw Jones are some of the big names slated to participate, as well as three-time All-Star Daniel Murphy, who returns to the Beehive State after a brief career comeback attempt with the Salt Lake Bees in 2023<\/a>. Softball stars include Jocelyn Alo, the all-time Division 1 home run hitter, who now slugs with the Oklahoma City Spark in the Association of Fastpitch Professionals.<\/p>\n

“The Ballpark at America First Square is a world-class venue, and we can’t wait to welcome baseball fans of all ages from across the state to watch these incredible athletes in action,” said Michelle Smith, president of Miller Sports + Entertainment, in a statement.<\/p>\n

MLB launched MLB Home Run Derby X three years ago as it seeks to woo in new crowds. It features 3-on-3 co-ed competition centered around “power hitting and athletic catches.”<\/p>\n

This year’s season starts with an event on July 13, corresponding with the MLB All-Star Week in Atlanta. There will be a series of “rivalry-themed” events across the nation culminating in a “race to Salt Lake City” in September.<\/p>\n

The field is stacked with memorable names. Combined, the big leaguers made 47 All-Star game appearances and have 12 World Series rings. Howard is the only one who won MLB’s annual Home Run Derby, defeating Mets star David Wright in the final round of the 2006 competition. The softball field’s resume is equally impressive, including 27 College World Series appearances, 16 college national titles and 17 first-time All-American selections.<\/p>\n

Other former big leaguers and softball stars set to participate are:<\/p>\n

Rick AnkielJake ArrietaReese AtwoodLorenzo CainMichael CuddyerIan DesmondJocelyn EricksonHannah FlippenJonny GomesAlex GordonAdrian GonzalezKinzie HansenAlex HugoTiare JenningsAshton LansdellAmanda LorenzElizabeth MasonAli NewlandJessica OaklandElla ParkerKasidi PickeringSydney RomeroTaylor SchumacherKatie StewartNick SwisherAdam WainwrightRyan ZimmermanBen Zobrist<\/p>\n

Organizers say more stars could join in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Tickets to the South Jordan event will go on sale beginning at 9 a.m. on May 22. They can be purchased online through the Bees’ website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH JORDAN \u2014 Utah might not have a Major League Baseball team \u2014 yet \u2014 but it’s about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,8073,8072,8074,7812,1299,169,5404,8075,185,1280,218,8076,217],"class_list":{"0":"post-16033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cars","10":"tag-classifieds","11":"tag-homes","12":"tag-jobs","13":"tag-local","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-radio","16":"tag-salt-lake","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-television","19":"tag-traffic","20":"tag-utah","21":"tag-weather"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114483773010277430","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}