It was probably the most heartfelt cheer for a pinch-runner in Coors Field history.<\/p>\n
When San Francisco Giants outfielder Jonah Cox was inserted into Sunday\u2019s game in the eighth inning to make his major league debut, about 60 friends and family in Section 135 erupted.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI could definitely hear them on the pinch-run because I don\u2019t think anybody else said a word,\u201d the 24-year-old Louisville native said with a laugh after the Giants clobbered the Rockies 19-6.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n Cox came around to score on a single by Rafael Devers, making his first big-league slide into home. In the ninth, Cox recorded his first hit, doubling off Brett Sullivan, the Rockies catcher who was called on as a sacrificial reliever with the game out of hand.\n<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s all still kind of surreal, and it hasn\u2019t sunk in yet,\u201d said Cox, who graduated from Class 1A Flatirons Academy in Westminster,<\/a> played junior college baseball, and then moved on to Oral Roberts. \u201cI\u2019m just grateful for the opportunity to be here. It\u2019s wild to think that I used to sit in those seats.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Wilder, still, was that his father, Darron Cox, got the first start of his career at Coors Field on April 19, 1999, as a catcher for the Montreal Expos.<\/a> Darron had made his big-league debut on April 6 at Pittsburgh.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe were secretly hoping that Jonah would get his first start here,\u201d said his dad, who played 15 games for the Expos in 1999 and was later a coach for four years in the Rockies organization. \u201cI mean, what are the odds that a son and a father would make their first starts at the same stadium. And what a beautiful ballpark and what a beautiful day.\u201d<\/p>\n Jonah Cox, a sixth-round pick by the Athletics in the 2023 draft, made the quantum leap from Double-A Richmond, where he was hitting .400, to the majors. The Giants haven\u2019t called up a position player directly from Double-A for several years. Third baseman Pablo Sandoval did it in 2008, and infielder Matt Duffy did it in 2014.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Cox\u2019s mother, Karen Cox (nee Spicer), was a college softball standout at Oklahoma. She understood the magnitude of Sunday.\n<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents had season tickets to the Rockies for 20 years,\u201d she said. \u201cOur kids \u2014 Caleb, Joshua, Jonah, and Emma \u2014 grew up in this ballpark watching and cheering for the Rockies.\u201d\n<\/p>\n She got the news of her son\u2019s pending debut on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n \u201cDarron and I were driving near our home in Thornton, doing some errands,\u201d she said. \u201cWe got a call, and put Jonah on speaker phone. He said, \u2018I\u2019ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is, whatever you have planned for tomorrow, cancel it. I just got called up, and we\u2019re playing the Rockies tomorrow.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI was a little stunned. It seemed unreal. It still does.\u201d<\/p>\n Kate Cox, Jonah\u2019s wife of six months and a golfer at Notre Dame, got the news while playing pickleball with her cousins in Edmond, Okla.<\/p>\n \u201cI checked my phone, and he had texted, \u2018You really need to answer, you really need to call me back,’\u201d Kate said. \u201cSo, when I did, he said, \u2018You need to book fight to Denver right away.\u2019 I didn\u2019t understand at first. I mean, he\u2019s from the Denver area, so I thought it was about family.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he said, \u2018No, I\u2019m playing \u2014 in Denver.\u2019 When I realized that he was getting called up, I just started bawling tears of joy. It was very emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n Cox was not in the starting lineup on Sunday because he had a monstrous travel schedule on Saturday and Sunday. He had a delayed flight from Akron, Ohio, on Saturday night, which meant he spent the night at O\u2019Hare International Airport in Chicago before arriving at DIA at about 7 a.m. Sunday.\n<\/p>\n \u201cWe did look at the lineup for a long time last night,\u201d manager Tony Vitello said. \u201cWhat\u2019s any one thing that maybe can again inject fresh blood or make today a little more exciting? And (Cox) being in (the lineup) was a possibility until that flight.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just that the travel got a little too crazy, but also we like what we got going on with the lineup today.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, it all worked out, and Cox\u2019s remarkable journey to the majors was official.<\/p>\n His trek included stops at Butler Community College as a freshman and Eastern Oklahoma State College as a sophomore before he transferred to Oral Roberts. There, the 21-year-old\u00a0rattled off a 47-game hit streak and won Summit League Player of the Year<\/a> while helping the Golden Eagles back to the College World Series for the first time since 1978.<\/p>\n His speed, something the Giants lack, is one of the reasons he skipped Triple-A and went straight to the majors. He had 58 steals each of the past two seasons and a league-leading 27 in Richmond\u2019s first 44 games this year. He also hit six homers and drove in 35 runs.<\/p>\n \u201cJonah\u2019s been playing well, but I don\u2019t think he saw this coming,\u201d his wife said. \u201cI think he was eager to move up to Triple-A. But for this to happen \u2026 Wow! I\u2019m so overjoyed, and so is he. But Jonah will handle this well. He knows how to organize his life when it comes to baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n