It was probably the most heartfelt cheer for a pinch-runner in Coors Field history.
When San Francisco Giants outfielder Jonah Cox was inserted into Sunday’s game in the eighth inning to make his major league debut, about 60 friends and family in section 135 erupted.
“I could definitely hear them on the pinch-run because I don’t think anybody else said a word,” the 24-year-old Louisville native said with a laugh after the Giants clobbered the Rockies 19-6.
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.
‘It’s all still kind of surreal, and it hasn’t sunk in yet,” said Cox, who graduated from Class 1A Flatirons Academy in Westminster, played junior college baseball, and then moved on to Oral Roberts. “I’m just grateful for the opportunity to be here. It’s wild to think that I used to sit in those seats.”
Wilder, still, was that his father, Darron Cox, got the first start of his career at Coors Field on April 19, 1999, as Darron had made his big-league debut on April 6 at Pittsburgh.
“We were secretly hoping that Jonah would get his first start here,” said his dad, who played 15 games for the Expos in 1999 and was later a coach for four years in the Rockies organization. “I 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.”
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’t 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.
Cox’s mother, Karen Cox (nee Spicer), was a college softball standout at Oklahoma. She understood the magnitude of Sunday.
“My parents had season tickets to the Rockies for 20 years,” she said. “Our kids — Caleb, Joshua, Jonah, and Emma — grew up in this ballpark watching and cheering for the Rockies.”
She got the news of her son’s pending debut on Saturday afternoon.
“Darron and I were driving near our home in Thornton, doing some errands,” she said. “We got a call, and put Jonah on speaker phone. He said, ‘I’ve 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’re playing the Rockies tomorrow.’
“I was a little stunned. It seemed unreal. It still does.”
Kate Cox, Jonah’s wife of six months and a golfer at Notre Dame, got the news while playing pickleball with her cousins in Edmond, Okla.
“I checked my phone, and he had texted, ‘You really need to answer, you really need to call me back,” Kate said. “So, when I did, he said, ‘You need to book fight to Denver right away.’ I didn’t understand at first. I mean, he’s from the Denver area, so I thought it was about family.
“But he said, ‘No, I’m playing — in Denver.’ When I realized that he was getting called up, I just started bawling tears of joy. It was very emotional.”
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’Hare International Airport in Chicago before arriving at DIA at about 7 a.m. Sunday.
“We did look at the lineup for a long time last night,” manager Tony Vitello said. “Whatap 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.
“Itap just that the travel got a little too crazy, but also we like what we got going on with the lineup today.”
In the end, it all worked out, and Cox’s remarkable journey to the majors was official.
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 rattled off a 47-game hit streak and won Summit League Player of the Year while helping the Golden Eagles back to the College World Series for the first time since 1978.
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’s first 44 games this year. He also hit six homers and drove in 35 runs.
“Jonah’s been playing well, but I don’t think he saw this coming,” his wife said. “I think he was eager to move up to Triple-A. But for this to happen … Wow! I’m so overjoyed, and so is he. But Jonah will handle this well. He knows how to organize his life when it comes to baseball.”
