ST. PETERSBURG, FL – Ben Rice and his father have dreamed and talked about it since he was a little kid. On Monday night, it happens for real, on a big league field with his dad on the mound.
The Yankees’ young slugger is in the Home Run Derby and Dan Rice, his father, is coming to throw to him. The elder Rice pitched at Brown in the 1980s and has never really stopped tossing to his son since he was able to hold a bat. On Monday, July 13, it’ll just be at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia in front of the whole country instead of in their backyard.
“That was always a lifelong dream of both of ours,” Rice said Tuesday, June 7 before New York took on the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. “So I am really looking forward to it.”
Rice, 27, is a first-time All-Star and a first-time entrant in the derby. He has the credentials, as he has grown into the bat that has kept the Yankees’ lineup afloat while Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are hurt.
That he is the one everyone expected to step up and fill in for Judge and Stanton is an almost dream in and of itself.
The Yankees took him in the 12th round of the 2021 draft, the 363rd pick overall out of Dartmouth. He didn’t care about pedigree and crashed the big leagues as a rookie in July 2024 with a three-homer game against the Red Sox, the first Yankees rookie to ever do that. A breakout 2025 followed, and this season, the left-handed hitting first baseman and designated hitter has become one of the most productive bats in the American League.
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Going into Tuesday night’s game, Rice was hitting .267 with 25 homers, tied for the fifth-most in the majors and third in the American League.
A Yankee has not won the Derby since Judge in 2017 in Miami. Before him, Tino Martinez, Jason Giambi and Robinson Cano took the title. Jazz Chisholm Jr. entered last year but went out in the first round with three home runs.
The blueprint Rice is following worked a year ago. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh won the 2025 Derby in Atlanta with his father pitching to him and his younger brother behind the plate, becoming the first catcher to win it. The man Raleigh beat in the final, Rays slugger Junior Caminero, is the only other hitter so far committed to the field in Philadelphia next week.
MLB reworked the format for this year, moving away from the timed rounds players griped were too tiring. There are now 20 swings in round one, 15 in round two and 15 in the final.
Rice likes the change not only for his own sake, but for his dad’s.
“It also takes some pressure off the BP thrower, because I have to swing at every pitch,” he said. “Overall it’s a positive change.”
He has done a version of this before. In his summer college league in 2020, tie games were settled with a home run swing-off.
“I did that three times that year,” Rice said.
He won all three.
That’s about as much preparation Rice is taking into this.
“I haven’t really thought about strategy,” Rice said. “I just kind of want to enjoy it. Have fun taking BP with my dad at a big league field, in front of a bunch of people. It should be cool.”
That experience with his dad was why Rice said yes to this opportunity. It’s a chance to share what has been a Cinderella-like big league career with the man that got him started.
His dad’s stuff, by the son’s scouting report, is not quite what it was. Dan Rice had a good curveball “back in the day,” his son said. The family is already reminding him not to throw any breaking balls in the derby and just groove them in for his son.
“He always throws to me in the offseason, still,” Rice said. “So his lifetime pitch count is through the roof at this point. We’ll keep adding to that total on Monday.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Yankees’ Ben Rice to get his Home Run Derby dream with dad pitching
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