Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr., Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton, and the meaning of a simple handshake

How far back does Bobby Witt Jr.’s admiration for Giancarlo Stanton stretch?

And what is the meaning of a simple handshake?

The answer to the first question is: many years. Witt keeps a baseball at home signed by a certain "Mike Stanton," the name under which Stanton played as a prospect and rookie for the then-Florida Marlins until reclaiming his given appellation in 2012, when Witt was 11 years old.

Witt’s brother-in-law, pitcher Zach Neal, played with Stanton in the minor leagues in the early 2010s and obtained the autograph. He gave it to Witt, whose history admiring Stanton began in childhood.

“One of my buddies growing up, [Stanton] was his guy,” Witt said this week at Yankee Stadium. “He loved watching him play. He started hitting like him a little bit in high school. So I thought it was cool to grow up watching him, watching the Home Run Derby and all that, watching him hit home runs here and in Miami, and then play against him.”

At 24 years old, Witt is an emerging generational superstar. The ball zooms off his bat and into the outfield with a special oomph. When he hits a slow ground ball to the shortstop, he shocks crowds with speed that recalls prime Mike Trout, nearly beating out the expected routine 6-3. He would have won the American League Most Valuable Player award last year if not for the astounding Aaron Judge.

And yet Witt allows himself the giddiness of appreciation for sharing a field with those stars, now in their mid-to-late 30s, whom he once admired from the outside.

“It’s still really cool,” Witt said. “Sometimes Judge gets on base and he’s calling me by my first name and it’s like, ‘This is cool.’ Watch those guys — Trout or whoever — it is, well, it’s cool.”

The most personal of these moments came in Kansas City on Oct. 10, 2024. At 9:44 p.m. on that night, the Royals’ Yuli Gurriel lined out to Judge in center field, ending the American League Division Series.

The Yankees poured from the dugout to celebrate near the pitcher’s mound, and the Royals trudged into their clubhouse.

But Witt remained, alone on the top step. He put his arms on the padded railing and forced himself to stare at the jubilant winners.

What ran through his mind during those long minutes?

“That it could be us,” Witt said. “I was going through the whole series in those five minutes right there. What could I have done better? What do I need to do more? It doesn’t even hit you that the season is over. It feels like you’re just waiting for what’s next. Then you’re watching them celebrate and it’s like, it’s over.”

At 9:49, Stanton, who had doubled twice and driven in a run in the 3-1 Yankees win, glanced over from the party and noticed Witt lost in his feelings.

He walked over to the rival dugout and shook the young man’s hand, patted him on the shoulder and made eye contact. The brief nonverbal interaction, caught by a photographer and quickly passed around the internet, cut deep for Witt. He turned away from the field, feeling ready to face his own clubhouse.

“It was not a premeditated thing,” Stanton said this week. “It was just something in the moment that I chose to do.”

“He didn't have to do that,” Witt said. “I know he’s not doing it for the cameras. He’s just a genuine guy. The stories I hear from guys who have played with him, from [Anthony] Volpe or whoever, are that he’s a person. He’s a guy first.

“You see him walking over there. You see what he did against us that day, and it’s like, he didn’t have to acknowledge me. He could have just walked over to do his interview and go home.”

The admiration is mutual. Stanton, reticent when asked about his own gesture, lit up when prompted about Witt as a player.

“He’s incredible,” Stanton said. “He’s going to be a staple in the league for a long time. He’s fun to watch. Obviously, I don’t want him to beat us, but you see the talent grow and become more refined since he came up, and he’s only going to get better.”

It is not difficult to imagine Witt and Stanton as older men, sitting on a stage in Cooperstown as fellow Hall of Famers at the annual inductions. If that happens, Witt will remember Stanton’s brief but powerful moment of sportsmanship from the 2020s.

For now, though, he remains excited to share a field with greats of his childhood, and the veterans ready to pass a share of the game, with grace, to a new generation.

“Just playing against him, just seeing him on the basepaths,” Witt says. “That is what you reach for.”