As you probably know by now, Kyle Blankshad an amazing game last night. He drove in three of the Padres' four runs and scored the other one on a wild pitch, but the most exciting part was his walk-off single. No sooner than the game had ended, everybody was tweeting that it was the second walk-off hit of Kyle's career. I was kind of surprised because it seems like he's done this a few times, but I immediately remembered the first one.
It was August 17, 2009, nearly two months after the rookie Blanks made his debut. He came up with Chase Headley and Kevin Kouzmanoff on base in the ninth inning of a 1-1 home game against the Cubs and hit one out to left-center. I remember watching the game on my laptop while sitting on my front porch; I had only recently moved there and the whole neighborhood was way sketchy. I wrote about the experience on my old, long-neglected blog a day after it happened:
My favorite moment of this season so far is still Li'l Tony's pinch-hit walk and subsequent winning run on the day we acquired him, but each of the past two games are definitely in the top-five. I watched Blanksy's walkoff job Monday night on the front porch since I was out there smoking when the rally started and I wasn't about to get out of my seat and eff it up. When KB parked that ball out in left, I went friggin' nuts; there's a good possibility I may have woke a neighbor or two up. One neighbor who was still awake without my assistance shouted across the street "What you wilin' out about, n****?" so I tossed my computer inside and went over there to explain myself and do a little socializing. This, my friends, is where it gets really bizarre. A few neighbors and some skanktastic girl I'd never seen before were holding it down, doing pretty much the same thing as me at that point which was drinking crappy beer. So far, not weird at all. Then he starts telling me how he's gonna start a strip club/ brothel out of his house"but only on the weekends" to which another neighbor responded that "nah, you neeed to have them h**s up in here on a Sunday cuz that's when my old lady's out of town". He then asked the skanky girl to "let me see how you do" and she queried "You got any bills?" His response was "No, but I got some pills" and without even asking what kind of pills they were, she immediately began walking inside. I was speechless and disgusted although not one bit surprised. I remained outside, talking to my next-door neighbor who is surprisingly a semi-decent human being- surprisingly because of the company he keeps- and getting hammered. And by hammered, I mean full-on Drama goes to DC hammered. Not too much later- or hell, maybe a lot later for all I know- pimp guy calls up another skankariffic girl with the intent of her and the other one "putting on a show". As soon as she got there and it was clear that everyone was going inside to participate in the degrading of women, I excused myself. I was then asked "What, you gay, n****?" Since there's no point in explaining my stance to someone who's enthusiastic about exploiting human beings and treating women like a combination of product and garbage, I just said I was tired. All in all, it was pretty effed up and I know where I'm not gonna be hanging out ever again.
The Padres' official site has video of Blanks's first walk-off. This was also the time that Heath Bell did the robot when everybody was celebrating at home plate. Ah, all these years later and Heath Bell is still making Padres fans happy in the ninth inning of games.