This story was excerpted from Justice delos Santos’ Pirates Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Josh Palacios was only going to hit his first home run once, and he was content to enjoy the experience.
“I was hyped,” Palacios said with an ear-to-ear grin. “I was definitely hyped.”
In the 123rd plate appearance of his Major League career on Friday, Palacios turned Giovanny Gallegos’ hanging changeup into a no-doubt 426-foot blast that would’ve cleared the fences of any ballpark for his first career long ball in the Pirates' 7-5 win over the Cardinals at PNC Park. Given it was his first, he didn’t opt to play it cool.
Palacios flipped his bat emphatically before beginning to round the bases. Once he made it back to the dugout, he donned the Pirates’ home run jacket and swung the home run sword, then tilted his head to the sky, closed his eyes and let out a cathartic roar.
“That’s probably the greatest feeling I’ve ever had, to do that in the Major Leagues,” Palacios said. “It’s been a long time coming, but to get my first one is an amazing feeling.”
Palacios, the product of a long lineage of ballplayers who have been gracing diamonds for decades, is far from the first person in his family to go yard.
His brother, Richie Palacios, was drafted by Cleveland in the third round of the 2018 MLB Draft and he currently plays for the organization’s Triple-A affiliate. Their father, Richie Sr., reached as high as Triple-A. Palacios’ uncle, Rey, played 101 games for the Royals. Palacios also had three great-uncles -- Louis, Juan and Stephen Gomez -- who played ball. Louis was a Caribbean All-Star; Stephen played in St. Croix; and Juan played in Puerto Rico and St. Croix.
“It was definitely a blessing,” Palacios said. “I didn’t get to choose who I was born to, but it was definitely a blessing to be born in this family because they were able to let me know what I was going to experience before I experienced it.
“They let me know what the mileage is like, the grind, the bus rides and all that. They let me know, mentally, where you had to prepare in order to be successful in the Minor Leagues and the Major Leagues. There’s a lot of things that a lot of guys don’t understand at a young age that I was able to be taught.”
Palacios’ father and uncle taught him countless lessons over the years. They taught him to appreciate his accomplishments but simultaneously understand there are more steps ahead. They’d tell Palacios, “You’re not working for this level; you’re working for the next.” They taught him to keep a level head, to dedicate his attention on the day-to-day instead of getting too far ahead.
“One of the things we told [Josh and Richie] is that, ‘Listen, if you want to be successful at this game, you have to be married to it. You have to be dedicated and committed to it. And you have to love it,’” Richie Sr. said. “Those are the things that they had. They always had a love for it. They always had a commitment. Regardless of what time it was, whether it be training at 5:30 in the morning and then going to class or hitting at night, they were always willing to do that.”
Palacios’ mother, Lianne, by contrast, describes herself as a “mathlete not an athlete” who has worked for the city of New York in human resources for her entire career. Richie Sr. helped guide his sons through the ins and outs of the game, but Lianne made sure her sons took care of business on the academic side. Lianne’s advice to Richie and Josh is also a tad different compared to that of Richie Sr.
“My mom is definitely more direct than my dad,” Palacios said. “My dad understands it more. He’ll dive more into the process. My mom’s just like, ‘Hit the damn ball. Just please get a hit for me.’”
Josh and Richie have done their part to carry on the family’s baseball legacy. Along with making the Majors -- Josh debuted in 2021, Richie in ‘22 -- the Palacios brothers represented their mother’s native Curaçao in the World Baseball Classic by playing for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
“It was thrilling, for me, for them to carry my country’s flag on their uniform," Lianne said. "Most people forget about me and they focus more on the boricua – the Puerto Rican side -- and they forget the Curaçao, Dutch side. So it was thrilling for me to see them both together; to see them playing for the country that I was born in.”