Joey Gallo is waiting for a new T-shirt in the mail to be delivered to his new address in New York.
The new Yankee slugger ordered a shirt that reads “The Italian Stallions,” with himself and new teammate and fellow Italian Anthony Rizzo pictured on the front.
It’s another chance for Gallo to embrace his heritage, something that the Yankee Stadium crowd has certainly embraced since both Gallo and Rizzo were acquired just before the trade deadline. Just before Gallo blasted what would be the game-winning home run in the bottom of the first on Monday night, an Italian flag went up in the stands just behind the Yankee dugout, which has become a sight easy for Gallo to embrace.
“I remember coming here with the angers and thinking ‘Wow, this would be a cool place to play because I’m Italian and the fanbase is really Italian here,’ so it’s exciting,” Gallo said. “I saw the flag waving and it makes me proud because there’s’ not a ton of Italian baseball players, but Rizzo is one of them as well, so it’s kind of prideful to have those guys having success in New York.”
Gallo found some success on Monday, blasting a no-doubt homer into the second deck in right field, his third home run in his last five games. For Gallo, now thrust into a playoff race, his recent long balls have felt a bit more meaningful with each game carrying so much importance.
“Especially after last year, I think every home run with every crowd here is a little more exciting than last year was,” Gallo said. “But you can feel the difference and the energy in the stadium. Obviously back in Texas we weren’t in a race and we weren’t gonna make the playoffs, so here, every day in the clubhouse, every day on the field, there’s a certain energy where every pitch counts and you don’t know what run can be the winning run, so it’s very exciting.”
With the heightened stakes comes heightened crowd noise, and after a slow start to his pinstriped tenure, Gallo is starting to show signs of life at the plate, as his last 23 plate appearances have yielded a 1.199 OPS.
“I’m starting to get used to it a little bit,” Gallo said. “You can hear the crowd chanting and wanting you to do well, and I just want to make them proud and make my team proud and win the game and have a good at-bat. But it’s exciting. As a kid you grow up wanting to be in Yankee Stadium and playing in a pennant race, so it’s kind of like a dream. But you try to focus on the task at hand…try not to listen to the outside noise, because it can get loud in there.”
It was loud on Monday, as Gallo provided all the Yankee offense for the night, and all they would need, in a crucial win to gain ground on the A’s in the Wild Card standings.
“It was pretty electric in there,” Gallo said. “It was one of the coolest home runs I’ve hit I think.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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