Henderson’s Latham wins home run contest

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, July 12, 2001 | 9:57 a.m.

It's been a week to remember for Henderson's Chris Latham.

First, the 28-year-old outfielder who starred at Basic High found out on Sunday that the Toronto Blue Jays were going to purchase his contract today and promote him to the big leagues. And then on Wednesday he won $1,000 for winning the Triple-A All-Star Game Home Run Derby at Victory Field in Indianapolis.

Latham, representing the Syracuse SkyChiefs as well as the International League, defeated Pacific Coast League finalist Jack Cust of Tucson, 5-1, in the finals of the home run contest.

Originially drafted by the Minnesota Twins and traded to the Colorado Rockies in December of 1999, Latham was lucky to even be in the home run contest. He was a last minute replacement for Durham catcher Toby Hall, a UNLV product who was the only unanimous choice to make the IL squad. Hall arrived to the festivities late from Seattle after playing in Sunday's Major League Futures Game.

The switch-hitting Latham took advantage of Victory Field's short 340-foot right-field fence by batting left-handed. It is 418 to left-center at Victory Field which hurt the right-handed hitting competitors in the contest.

"The other guys tried to do too much," Latham said. "I figured I'm a switch-hitter and I'd just turn around left-handed and yank a few on the lawn up there."

Also taking part in the home run derby was Salt Lake's Jose Fernandez, Tacoma's massive Juan Thomas, Rochester's Calvin Pickering and Durham's Ron Wright. Pickering filled in for Louisville's Adam Dunn, another late arrival from Seattle who would go on to garner game MVP honors with a pair of home runs.

As nice as winning the home run contest was for Latham, the news the Blue Jays and manager Buck Martinez decided to promote him to the big club today was even bigger.

Latham will join Toronto at Philadelphia tonight. He was hitting .278 with 13 homers, 20 doubles, nine triples and 54 RBIs for the SkyChiefs and got the nod to join the big club over highly touted outfield prospect Vernon Wells as well as Deion Sanders.

"I just want to go out and have a solid year and play the game and have fun," Latham said. "Everything else is up to Toronto."