Auston Matthews throws nervousness aside with Jay’s ceremonial first throw

Auston Matthews grew up in Arizona and played a bit of baseball before deciding to play hockey as his favorite sport.

“I had a pretty wild arm, so I was usually a catcher,” the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Star Center said Tuesday afternoon. “I served a little bit, but I wasn’t very good.”

A few hours later, the 60-goal scorer threw the ceremonial first pitch before Aaron Judge attempted to hit his 61st homer of the season as the New York Yankees took on the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Center.

Judge is only the third player in American League history to hit 60 or more homers in a season. Babe Ruth had 60 in 1927 while Roger Maris reached 61 in 1961.

Everyone’s been a Yankee, but Judge might just be the greatest hitter in the franchise’s storied history.

“Growing up, my dad used to tell me the hardest thing in sports was hitting a little white baseball that’s coming at you at 100 miles an hour, so it’s pretty cool to see what.” [Judge] could,” Matthews said after practice.

A note here: In April 2017, Matthews was doing batting practice at Rogers Center and threw a pitch over the right fence. He wears the number 34 because he was a big fan of David Ortiz. His teammates even call him Little Papi.

Matthews’ father Brian was a pitcher at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Austin chose hockey and it was clearly the right choice. In the 2021-22 season, he became the first player in Maple Leafs history to score 60 goals in a season.

But his performance on the hill at Rogers Center was the talk of the clubhouse on Tuesday at the Ford Performance Center.

“It’s going to get pretty crowded because of what Judge is chasing,” said Morgan Rielly, the defense attorney and a baseball player in his youth. “There could be a little more pressure on him and maybe he’ll put you in the dirt.

“That would be good.”

Alexander Kerfoot was a baseball teammate with Rielly in British Columbia as a kid before joining him in a royal blue and white hockey jersey in Toronto.

“I was pretty small and couldn’t hit the ball very far,” Kerfoot said. “They mostly made me colorful.”

Kerfoot remarked that Matthews was an excellent tennis player, so he expected him to throw a strike. Not that he really wanted that.

“I’m sure if he throws a bad pitch, he’ll hear about it for the rest of the season,” Kerfoot said.

He sounded a little hopeful.

Mitch Marner looped a soft into the glove of former Toronto pitcher Marcus Stroman before a Blue Jays game in 2017. He missed the corner but didn’t embarrass himself.

“I was nervous as hell,” Marner said. He described standing on pitcher’s mound looking at home plate and feeling “all alone.”

Last year, Mark Giordano was invited along with five of his former Kraken teammates to pitch a pitch before a Mariners game in Seattle.

It didn’t go well. It was one of those balls that famed Milwaukee Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker would have described as “just outside.” It eluded the catcher and skidded toward the backstop.

“I will pray for him,” Giordano said of Matthews.

Matthews didn’t want to reveal if he would throw a fastball or maybe some off-speed as a surprise.

He threw from in front of the pitching rubber and his mid-speed pitch was snapped by Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah. He’s done well but won’t be joining the Toronto rotation anytime soon.

“The guys told me bring some warmth,” he said. “I think they were hoping that maybe I would embarrass myself.”