A.J. Starkey, North Florida’s 2005 Power Showcase Home Run Derby Champion broke the national record for most home runs in a single round with 24 and tied the national record for consecutive home runs with 7.
Twenty years from now, Stephen Roe will have one heck of a story to tell his kids one day. Roe was lights out this weekend as he left the crowd in stunned state of shock after his amazing blast into the night Like the scene out of the movie ‘The Natural’ starring Robert Redford, at approximately 11:30 a.m. Roe sent a high fastball over the left field fence and into several power lines causing quite an explosion. In the movie, Redford hit a massive home run shot over the right field fence hitting the light pole, causing the lights to explode like the fireworks on the Fourth of July. In a near mirror image, Roe’s shot sailed high over the left field fence in between two trees hit several power lines and came to rest in neighborhood resident Melvin Deloach’s yard in between two bushes, an estimated 370 feet. “It was my seventeenth pitch, I hadn’t hit many home runs, I hit it to left field busting the power lines, there was this huge explosion with smoke and sparks they called the fire department, the police and the electric company, it was like a scene out of the Natural,” said Roe, a senior pitcher from
Pasco County High School.
A.J. Starkey (Cocoa Beach HS - Cocoa Beach, FL) was awarded for setting a new national home run record last with 24 home runs in a round and tied the national record for consecutive Home Runs with seven in addition to winning the 2005 North Florida Power Showcase Champion Title.