Yankees' Gerrit Cole finds topic of playing at Wrigley Field a real blast

CHICAGO — Gerrit Cole famously grew up a fan of the Yankees. His appreciation of their history is well documented.

But the righthander grew up a fan of the sport of baseball first and foremost, always appreciating the game’s collective history.

That is among the many reasons why pitching at Wrigley Field, which Cole will do Sunday, has always been special.

And it isn’t just because he won his first career start there on Sept. 24, 2013, while a member of the Pirates, allowing two runs and seven hits in six innings in a victory over the Cubs.

“It’s just such a charming place to be,” Cole told Newsday.

Cole then referenced Wrigleyville, the cozy neighborhood surrounding the ballpark, among the primary reasons it colloquially is known as “The Friendly Confines.”

“The buzz is just there,” he said. “You pull up at 1 in the afternoon [for a night game], the buzz is there.”

Wrigley also is the site of a Cole career milestone, just not the kind of milestone typically recorded by a pitcher such as a 100th career victory or a 1,000th career strikeout.

No, it’s a milestone relating to something that hasn’t been a part of any pitcher’s game since 2021, the last season in which pitchers in the National League batted before the adoption of the universal DH in 2022.

Indeed, Wrigley was the site of the first of Cole’s three career home runs on Sept. 7, 2014. “Oh, I remember it vividly,” he said.

Cole, already beaming while talking about Wrigley, smiled even more widely when that topic came up.

It’s something his teammates were informed about throughout the week. “Oh, we’ve heard all about it,” one of them said with a big laugh. “More than once.”

Every big-leaguer typically can recall, in detail, his first career home run. “It’s kind of a surreal thing,” Aaron Judge said of his first career homer, which came off Rays righthander Matt Andriese on Aug. 13, 2016, at Yankee Stadium. “It’s almost just an out-of-body experience.”

Cole remembered it all. “It was a good game overall,” he said of the Pirates’ 10-4 win over the Cubs on a sunny, 76-degree Sunday afternoon. “We put up a lot of runs and I was working into the seventh inning.”

With a runner on, the Pirates leading 8-2 and righthander Blake Parker on the mound, Cole received what he called a “rare green light” to hack away.

“Swung first pitch,” he said. “Our main philosophy in Pittsburgh was to average 4 ½ pitches an at-bat for the season [as pitchers hitting]. I got the green light to go and I just got, it was either a two-seam fastball or it was a little bit of a four-seam fastball that just kind of faded middle in, and I torched it.”

Cole still has possession of the well-struck baseball, though that almost wasn’t the case.

That’s because the ball nearly left the ballpark entirely and landed on Waveland Avenue, the well-known street that runs behind the bleachers in left.

“One degree higher, it would have left the park,” Cole said. “Just drilled the back fence.”

Does he think his first-career-home-run story would be even better if the ball had left Wrigley entirely? “Yeah, I think it would have been,” he said, still smiling. “I missed it by a foot. Still smoked it, though. Something like 420-something feet.”

As for pitching at Wrigley, Cole has experienced far more success there than not. Entering Sunday, he is 7-2 with a 2.05 ERA in nine career starts there.

Cole said one of the keys is embracing the vagaries of the weather and the impact it can have on a game, the most significant of those being the wind. When it’s blowing in off nearby Lake Michigan, pitching is far easier than when the breeze is blowing out, turning the venerable ballpark into a launching pad.

“It can be wonky,” Cole said. “When it’s blowing in, you pitch to that. And when it’s blowing out, you pitch to that, too. So it can be very dynamic and a little bit scrappy in that regard where sometimes you just have to do things that maybe don’t make a lot of sense, but with the given conditions that day, that’s what you have to do.

“I think that frustrates a lot of players, to be honest. The same way Fenway can frustrate players too [because of the Green Monster in left and the Pesky Pole in right] . . . But I always found it fun. I always found it just a challenge, whether it was really, really cold and snowing or really hot and the wind was blowing out or really hot and the wind was blowing in. There’s always some sort of element there that just adds to it.

“And then the historical component, like Babe Ruth calling his shot [during the 1932 World Series against Cubs pitcher Charlie Root]. Just spending time in the stadium and just the energy of the fans. It’s just great.”