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\n Atlanta Braves designated hitter Dominic Smith made MLB history by hitting the first-ever walk-off grand slam in a player’s debut with a new team. The emotional victory came less than two weeks after Smith’s mother passed away from cancer.\n <\/p>\n
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ATLANTA \u2014 In an emotional and historic moment Saturday night, Atlanta Braves designated hitter Dominic Smith accomplished something never before seen in Major League Baseball history, all while grieving the recent loss of his mother.<\/p>\n
Smith became the first MLB player ever to hit a walk-off grand slam during his debut with a new team, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. His dramatic home run capped off a remarkable six-run ninth inning comeback that gave the Braves a 6-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals.<\/p>\n
The achievement carries extra significance as Smith\u2019s mother died from cancer less than two weeks ago. Throughout his personal struggle, Smith says his new teammates have provided unwavering support.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just amazing,\u201d Smith commented after the game. \u201cPlayed against the Braves for a long time, and being on the other side a lot of these endings kind of hurt, so to be on the right side of it this time was so fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith, who barely made the Braves\u2019 opening day roster, shared with reporters how the organization supported him during spring training while his mother battled illness. After receiving her cancer diagnosis in September, she nearly died when training camp began. Smith departed the team for more than a week during a health \u201cscare,\u201d but returned to compete for his roster spot. He was not present in California when she passed away.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team is just so awesome,\u201d Smith expressed. \u201cI\u2019m so blessed because of the love they showed me, the support every day. They\u2019re asking about her, asking about her well-being, my well-being, and that\u2019s all they really cared about. They didn\u2019t care about baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s moment of gratitude came in the ninth inning against Royals closer Carlos Est\u00e9vez, who led the majors with 42 saves last season. The Braves had overcome a 2-0 deficit with RBI singles from Mike Yastrzemski and Michael Harris II, loading the bases with one out. After taking a timeout to compose himself on a full count, Smith launched a fly ball into the right field stands, sending the sold-out crowd into celebration.<\/p>\n
Smith described feeling his mother\u2019s presence during the celebration and looks forward to the team\u2019s upcoming road trip to Anaheim, where he can visit family and \u201csay his goodbyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI got choked up a bunch of times, and it\u2019s, you know, I\u2019m trying to hold back tears now,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel her every day. I miss her dearly. It\u2019s not a moment I don\u2019t think about her. And like I said, I\u2019m just so thankful because this team knows what I\u2019m going through. So they really, you know, picked me up the last few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atlanta Braves designated hitter Dominic Smith made MLB history by hitting the first-ever walk-off grand slam in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2394],"tags":[75638,75639,191,46,4166,5,192,75632,75640,75634,75635,75633,75636,4,75637],"class_list":{"0":"post-649882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-102-3","9":"tag-102-3fm","10":"tag-atlanta","11":"tag-atlanta-braves","12":"tag-atlantabraves","13":"tag-baseball","14":"tag-braves","15":"tag-fine-day","16":"tag-fine-day-102-3","17":"tag-fine-day-fm","18":"tag-fine-day-media","19":"tag-fine-day-radio","20":"tag-have-a-fine-day","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-weller-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116310643967896682","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649882","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=649882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}