Pete Alonso already made himself one of the great home run stories in baseball history before he broke Aaron Judge’s all-time rookie home run record with No. 53 on Saturday night at Citi Field against the Braves. But the narrative is different for him than it was with Judge. There were already expectations for Judge by the time he got to Spring Training in 2017, even if nobody had any idea he would hit 52 homers that year. No one knew how much game Alonso really had until he got to Spring Training. Then, he started hitting home runs in Florida ... and never stopped.

He created his own big expectations in the big city. But no one expected this, not even him.

“This is more than a dream,” Alonso said on Saturday night.

When Alonso hit his record-setting, 415-foot shot, it left him with just eight fewer home runs than Roger Maris’ 61 in 1961 and seven fewer than Babe Ruth’s fabled 60. The biggest year Mickey Mantle had also came in ’61, when he hit 54 homers chasing Maris. Willie Mays’ second-highest home run total, 51, happened in '55, when he was still a New York Giant at the Polo Grounds (he hit 52 homers 10 years later with the Giants in the Bay Area). We all know everything has gotten bigger in baseball, starting with the players. We know the balls now jump out of parks like Titleists, and the bats are made of maple. It doesn’t change the fact that Alonso, the kid from Tampa, has walked with giants this year -- all the New York home run giants.

If you look at where Alonso was when he arrived in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and where he was on Saturday night -- throwing his arms into the air when he realized he’d hit No. 53, before making another dream trip around the bases -- there has never been a bigger home run surprise in the Big Apple than his.

“I was just kind of thinking about all the greats in the game of baseball,” Alonso said. “I was thinking about guys like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams -- guys like Aaron Judge -- and the fact that I'm ahead of those guys as a rookie. It's mind-blowing."

We’ve gone over this before about Alonso: He’ll be National League Rookie of the Year, but he won’t be NL MVP. But there hasn’t been a more valuable player in either league than he has been for the Mets. Even though the Mets didn’t have much of a chance to still be a Wild Card in the last week of September, they still had a chance. Alonso is the one who carried them to that point.

On a team that has only talked about pitching over the past few seasons, the Mets now have the greatest single-season home run hitter in their history. The previous team record was 41, shared by Carlos Beltran and Todd Hundley. By Saturday night, with one game still left to play, Alonso -- the kid out of Plant High in Tampa, Fla. -- had beaten that mark by a dozen home runs. More than anyone they have -- and that includes Jacob deGrom, who might win his second straight NL Cy Young Award -- Alonso is the one who has Mets fans believing next season will be better than this one. They see how Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil, Amed Rosario and J.D. Davis organized themselves around Alonso’s power. This was no sad ending for the Mets on Saturday night. In so many ways, it was as good and emotional of a night as they had all season -- because Alonso hit another one out of sight.

Alonso is the most exciting kid the Mets have had since Dwight Gooden was a youngster striking out the world. Mike Trout did not shock the baseball world this season; neither did Cody Bellinger -- even coming off a down season for him. But Alonso did. In a year in which baseball broke home run records galore -- one that saw the Yankees and Twins both zoom past 300 homers collectively -- the Mets rookie was the best home run story of them all. The winner of the Home Run Derby really did turn his whole debut campaign into one. He didn't just break records -- he gave his fans the most precious commodity there is in sports: hope.

I’ve seen a lot of young stars in New York City, in all the sports. But no young guy I’ve ever seen has accepted the responsibilities of his stage and city better than Alonso has. It has really been such a great story, one I’ve been following the past couple of months through the eyes of his coach from Plant High, Dennis Braun -- who flew up this weekend and saw his protegee hit No. 52 to tie Judge on Friday, then hit No. 53 on Saturday night.

“Not a bad way to see my first two Mets games,” Braun told me on Saturday night.

I asked him what it was like to see the record-breaker in person.

“Pretty emotional,” Braun said. “If I was not at the stadium, I would have cried. Even being here, I had trouble holding [my tears] back. There’s something about greatness. It still makes me tear up.”

When Alonso's homer total was in the mid-30s, Braun told me to call him when the kid got to 50. I called him after No. 50, and wrote about our conversation last week. But all along, Braun has been telling me the number he really had in his head was 55. Double nickel.

“[I] don’t want to sound greedy,” Braun said. “But 55 still isn’t out of the question.”

Alonso started hitting home runs in the spring and didn’t stop. The only thing that will stop him now is running out of games. It has been that kind of a magical year. His high school coach is right. There’s still just something about greatness. We always ask sports to surprise us. Alonso certainly did.