Short Hops: Mo Vaughn by Alan Siegel

Alan Siegel is a writer in Washington, D.C. Contact him at asiegel05@gmail.com.

Mo Vaughn didn't stand in the batter's box, he wedged his big body into it, hunching his shoulders and dipping his head under what I always assumed was an imaginary door frame. It's too bad I was born right-handed. I would've spent my Little League years imitating his swing, which cut through the strike zone like a pendulum and finished high in the air. I loved watching him golf opposite-field homers over the Green Monster, a decade before David Ortiz made his bones doing the same thing.