Homer redemption

OMAHA, Neb. -- The last of Florida’s four home runs in Wednesday night’s 10-2 win against Miami (Fla.) came off the bat of Peter Alonso.

The ball flew to about the fifth row off the fence in section 130, just to the left of dead center. Although, for game purposes, the homer merely served as a pair of insurance runs -- which at that point was more like dinosaur attack insurance than something that you could save 15 percent on in less than 15 minutes -- but also brought about some personal redemption for Alonso.

In the Gators first CWS game against Miami on Saturday, -- another huge 15-3 win -- Alonso had Florida’s only extra base hit in an 11 run fourth inning. He hit a long fly ball that didn’t go further than the leftfield wall, but left the box with a pro-ready bat flip.

“I’ll talk to him,” was all that Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan could say beyond a roll of the eyes about the bat flip after the game on Saturday.

“We were up by a lot at that point, can’t really be mad if we won the game,” Alonso said. “But, yeah he did tell me that I need to stop that kind of stuff.”

“But last night I did a couple push-ups and I finally got one out of here so I guess that one kind of makes up for what I did on Saturday.”

The ball landed an estimated 421 feet from home plate, which is good for the furthest a ball has traveled in TD Ameritrade Park (host of the CWS since 2011) history.

Alonso said he didn’t know about that bit of trivia after the game but knew he had got a hold of one right at the point of contact.

“I kind of [felt it off the bat] but I wanted to run it out not bat-flip it,” Alonso said. “So I guess I got kind of good karma by not bat-flipping.”

By the time Alonso hit the homer, the score was already 8-2 Gators in the top of the seventh inning. The reported crowd of 24,033 had already begun to dwindle, but Alonso still understood there would be distinctive feelings when going yard in Omaha.

“It’s the best feeling in the world,” Alonso said. “Especially if you connect with one and it gets out of this park because historically the ball doesn’t travel well here, then its definitely a well-struck ball and to square up a baseball and have it go over the fence is the best feeling in the world.”

When asked if the moment was special enough to warrant chasing down the ball for his trophy case, Alonso opted not to worry about finding the souvenir.

“Omaha can keep that.”