Byron Buxton Is the King Of the Grounds He's Electrified

The Home Run King of Target Field, they’ll call Byron Buxton. “The best there ever was,” to quote Roger Towne. At least with regard to this one particular thing.

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Hastily-generated social posts aside: spectators love watching Byron Buxton play baseball, and Byron Buxton loves playing baseball at Target Field. More than any other player since 2010, he has charged the home grounds of the Minnesota Twins with the same authenticity and commitment as the fans themselves. He’s refused trades and, for over a decade, been as good as his word. He’s forged relationships with team trainers and repeatedly -- even enthusiastically, at times -- discussed his desire to be on the field every day.

Last year, he hit 35 home runs in just 126 games, both career-bests. This year, he played center field for Mark DeRosa and the U.S. national team in the World Baseball Classic and set the home run record at Target Field last Monday.

“THE ALL-TIME TARGET FIELD HOME RUN LEADER”

It starts as many at-bats do: uniquely. Bottom 5, eight-run lead. The ruins of expectation litter Target Field in the aftermath of the 11-run blitz the Twins detonated over Cy Young runner-up Garrett Crochet and the Boston Red Sox. Bailey Ober is cruising to his second win of the season, the result all but final; the rest of the game, a formality.

Buxton steps to the plate, already his fourth plate appearance of the game, a respectable 1-for-3. He’d participated in the earlier blitz, with one run scored and one driven in. The Red Sox tidy-up crew, like the house cleaners from John Wick, has arrived to carry the weight of this game, one more jug of disaster for their April waterwagon, to the end of the mild Minneapolis night.

He works ahead in the count, making a quick study of three pitches: a four-seamer inside, a telltale cutter for an outer-half strike, and a throwaway curveball for Ball 2.

When the camera cuts to a close-up of Buxton, all begins to slow. His high stance light; his brow relaxed. He takes a couple of chomps on his gum, then draws the stillness to him. He’s seen what he needs to, unbuilds his strategy with the wreck of expectation. You can see it as Byron’s bat, twiglike in his long hands, goes still, perfectly still, just before the windup.

Fastball, outer half: a pitch in crisis, uncertain, trying to find its identity somewhere between the Ball 1 fastball and the cutter for a strike. No late movement; no cheeky dot. It’s the pitch Buxton predicted -- not quite knowledge, but intuition near as -- clear in the easy drop of the hickory barrel through the shadow-red of the strike zone, and the center mass of the ball.

Ryan Watson crow-hops as if to bargain, but he knows it’s headed beyond the green. The fans “oh!” instinctively as the drive tracks at 105.4 mph towards the 403’ marker in center field. Cory Provus’ voice is climbing, pitching to its signature: “...and that is gone!”

Ceddanne Rafaela, Buxton’s Boston counterpart, chases it up the center field wall. Still, even Buxton couldn’t catch this ball. Rafaela leaps, hangs childlike, and watches the home run disappear into the deep emerald of the batter’s eye.

The camera crew cuts back just in time to get the Buck Truck and the colorful splash of the display as Byron rounds second base. Austin Martin is the first to greet him at home, business-like, with the burden of following the act. Byron then makes his way to the end of the dugout -- a little quietly for the occasion, if you want to know what I think -- to Royce Lewis, who hugs Buxton a second time, just before Martin strikes out on a rather dazzling sinker from Watson.

Play continues: a lovely night in Minneapolis.

HOMECOMING 

Garrett Crochet’s career-worst start stole the headlines, for all the typical reasons that an East Coast team’s failures drive more interest than a Midwest team’s house records. MLB.com, making an effort to contextualize Buxton’s achievement, ran a study of all-time home run leaders in each park. DeRosa mentions Buxton twice, but can’t resist the pedestrian urge to lament Byron’s injury history rather than discuss the record or teach his reader about Buxton's history as a power hitter.

The rest of the article features a predictable top-10 list and a tour of the current records in each park. Informative, but it rather buries the lead.

Fairly enough, perhaps. Buxton’s record of 85 home runs -- now 87, after his brace on April 14 -- doesn't indicate he will break Mel Ott’s record of 323 home runs at the Polo Grounds. Target Field is one of six yards in which the home run leader has yet to reach triple digits. That would be a terrific, reasonable goal for Buxton in the remaining three years of his contract.

But more: in the age of the home run -- we call it the “Statcast Era” -- this is a major achievement for a player who has played his entire career for a single team. It sharply contrasts with, before it compares to, Max Kepler's story, the previous home run record holder. In 2024, Kepler decided to try his hand in Philadelphia, struggled to produce, departed to free agency after a single year. He's currently serving an 80-game suspension for a positive test that suggests he had used an anabolic steroid.

Kepler and Buxton anchored the Twins outfield for nearly a decade. Both started in 2015, and aside from the games played, their career numbers align closely. But Kepler, even when he held the home run record, never carried a kingly presence at Target Field. Few have, and none as distinctly as Byron Buxton. The record feels right in No. 25's hands, inevitable even. Still, far more important to Minnesota’s history than a fifth-inning footnote or a reason to drum up a reason to talk about the Polo Grounds and Sammy Sosa.

For Minnesota, Buxton’s record -- more significant with each long ball he adds to it -- drives away any question of committing to the organization’s best players. The recipient of a rare nine-figure deal from the Pohlads, Buxton has made it his purpose to perform through and after injury, to excel when he can. He’s never demanded a fresh start: he’s shown Twins Territory how to finish what they start.

You don’t find integrity like that easily, or often. Far rarer than a home run or a bad start, Buxton’s example -- year after year, and hopefully through to the finish -- reminds us that baseball still keeps most of its secrets for itself.

Byron Buxton seems to have coaxed a fair few from Target Field. None is more important to the grounds, or the identity he’s given to its center field, than his home run last Monday night.