Jon Rahm will throw the ceremonial first pitch at tonight’s Game Four of the 2023 Baseball World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers at Chase Park in Phoenix.
Rahm, a Phoenix resident and Arizona State University alumni, follows in the footsteps of fellow Masters champions Scottie Scheffler and Jordan Spieth – both Texas Rangers fans, coincidentally – who got one of Major League Baseball’s showpiece games underway whilst holding the honour of being the reigning Masters champion.
Despite being a native of Spain, Rahm is very much settled in the United States and even took on the difficult task of taking up the bat against a major league pitcher when he took swings at Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Walker Buehler’s deliveries at the Titleist Performance Institute in California earlier this season.
“I said, ‘I’ve got to see this one guy live throw a pitch.’ I couldn’t believe when I saw the actual plate how small it is,” Rahm said. “I was like, ‘There’s no way you hit this all the time on command.’ He threw two lasers at the same spot. He said it was 85 mph. It didn’t seem like he was trying very hard.”
As an athlete who’s capable of generating serious speed in his own chosen sport, it remains to be seen whether Rahm will opt for an underarm lob like we’ve seen from several celebrity game starters, or whether he’ll try to deliver a fastball of his own.
Ryder Cup teammate Justin Rose threw the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game earlier this season, while Open champion Brian Harman got an Atlanta Braves game underway shortly after capturing the claret jug.
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