Uncle Rico approves of prospect's HR 'over those mountains'

July 1st, 2022

This home run call is pretty sweet, but not as cool as hunting wolverines.

Actor Jon Gries, better known as Uncle Rico from the 2004 movie “Napoleon Dynamite,” was on hand as a guest broadcaster for the High-A Great Lakes Loons on Thursday. He was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of baseball’s budding stars, Dodgers No. 1 prospect Diego Cartaya.

With Gries in the booth, Cartaya hit a towering home run that was so majestic, it had the actor reprising his role, expressing that the dinger “was over those mountains.”

Cartaya, the No. 23 overall prospect according to MLB Pipeline, has homered in three consecutive games and is catching the attention of many this season, hitting .283 with a .993 OPS. The 20-year-old catcher has 14 homers this year and 28 across 134 pro games.

Of course, Uncle Rico could have gone pro as well, albeit in football rather than baseball, but for someone who could toss a pigskin over a quarter-mile, he would have fit right in on the diamond. If only we had a time machine to see him in his prime.