When Kevin Kouzmanoff stepped to the plate for his first major-league at-bat Sept. 2 at Ameriquest Field in Arlington, Texas, he was just another late-season call-up for the Cleveland Indians.
One pitch later, he was part of major-league baseball history. Kouzmanoff became the first player in big-league history to hit a grand slam on the first pitch he faced.
Only three big-league players have hit a grand slam in their first at-bat: Kouzmanoff, Jeremy Hermida of the Florida Marlins in 2005 and Bill Duggleby of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1898.
It took awhile for the full significance to set in. The first revelation was that he was the third player to hit a grand slam in his first at-bat. But the Indians media department quickly verified he is the first to hammer a grand slam on the first pitch.
“I’ll be the answer to a trivia question for the rest of my life,” said Kouzmanoff, who played baseball at Evergreen High School. “It’s weird, but cool. I had no clue anything like that would happen.”
Kouzmanoff’s blast came in the first inning, and the Indians went on to win 6-5 for their fifth straight victory.
Kouzmanoff had his own cheering section in Texas. His father and mother, Marc and Kim, and brother Ky were in the stands.
“It was unbelievable,” Kim Kouzmanoff said. “He came up with two outs and we were hoping for a single or something to just get on base. It was a terrific moment, but nobody knew what it meant.”
Kim Kouzmanoff remembers the announcer saying they were checking the record book.
Marc Kouzmanoff was recording Kevin’s first at-bat on a video camera.
“I didn’t get a good look as to where the ball was going,” Marc Kouzmanoff said. “I knew it couldn’t be a sacrifice fly because there were two outs. It was minor leagues one day and 24-hour ‘SportsCenter’ the next.”
Kouzmanoff wasn’t about to be a one-day wonder. He hit another home run off Kevin Millwood the next day and has three in 27 at-bats over seven games.
Kouzmanoff’s path to the big leagues wasn’t as easy as that first-pitch piece of history. He went to Cochise College in Douglas, Ariz., for two years after high school. Then it was off to an ill-fated year at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
“They wanted to change everybody’s approach to the game,” Kevin Kouzmanoff said. “I butted heads with the coaching staff. They just wanted a bunch of robots. I figured that what got me there was the way I swung the bat and my ability.”
Kouzmanoff credits Troy Slinkard, his hitting coach at Evergreen, with teaching him a good style and approach to hitting.
After a request to be released from his scholarship at Arkansas-Little Rock, he enrolled at the University of Nevada. The release came at about Christmas after what he called “a painful process” that included an NCAA hearing. Kouzmanoff then played his senior season at Nevada.
“That saved my career,” Kevin Kouzmanoff said. “It helped me get drafted.”
“Baseball was something that most of us had given up on,” Marc Kouzmanoff said.
The Indians drafted Kouzmanoff in the sixth round of the 2003 June draft. It was off to the minor leagues and a climb up the development ladder that led to his rendezvous with history Sept. 2.
Kouzmanoff will go to major-league camp next spring. He thinks he can make it as a third baseman or first baseman, but there also is the option to be a designated hitter.
“I don’t think about the grand slam much anymore,” Kouzmanoff said. “In baseball you play every day and learn to have a short memory.”
Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
