Miguel Cabrera Hits a Walk-Off Homer in His Major League Debut

On June 20, 2003, twenty-year-old Miguel Cabrera played his first major league game for the Florida Marlins and ended it with a two-run walk-off home run in the eleventh inning against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. His first career hit traveled 491 feet over the center field fence at Pro Player Stadium, and the Marlins won 3-1.

Cabrera had been tearing through the minor leagues. At Double-A Carolina, he was hitting .365 with 10 home runs and 59 RBIs in 68 games when the Marlins called him up. He was a shortstop in the minors, but the Marlins needed him in left field. He was the youngest position player in the National League.

His first four at-bats produced nothing. The game went to extra innings tied 1-1. In the bottom of the eleventh, with a runner on first and reliever Al Levine on the mound, Cabrera drove the first pitch he saw deep to center field. The ball cleared the wall by a wide margin. Cabrera circled the bases and was mobbed at home plate by teammates, who smothered him with a shaving-cream pie.

He became just the third player since 1900 to hit a game-winning home run in his major league debut, following Billy Parker in 1972 and Josh Bard in 2002. Back in Cabrera's hometown of Maracay, Venezuela, his parents watched on television.

The debut was the opening act of one of the most productive hitting careers in baseball history. Cabrera helped the Marlins win the World Series that October, hitting .333 in the Fall Classic against the Yankees. He went on to win the Triple Crown with Detroit in 2012, the first player to lead his league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs in the same season since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. He won back-to-back MVP awards in 2012 and 2013 and finished his career with 3,174 hits and 511 home runs.

That first swing on June 20 set the tone for everything that followed.