Growing up in Nassau, Jazz Chisholm Jr. remembers flipping rocks to himself in his backyard.
A childhood Yankees fan — the Bombers are big in the Bahamas — Chisholm would unleash a for-the-fences swing. As he connected, an imaginary crowd would roar. After all, it was the bottom of the ninth in a pivotal playoff game.
At least that’s what his imagination told him.
“That’s what’s been going through my head all my life,” Chisholm said Tuesday with his Yankees awaiting the Royals and the start of the ALDS. “So I feel like this has been all my life, preparing myself for this type of moment and playing in Yankee Stadium in the playoffs and getting to the World Series and winning it.”
Chisholm, acquired from the Marlins prior to the trade deadline, has been a huge help to the Yankees since joining the team he admired as a kid.
In addition to learning third base on the fly, he slashed .273/.325/.500 with 11 home runs, 23 RBI and 18 stolen bases over 46 games. Overall, Chisholm ended the season hitting .256/.324/.436 while setting career-highs with 21 doubles, 24 home runs, 73 RBI and 40 stolen bases.
“He’s been great. He really has. I’ve only seen him play a handful of games over the years. Obviously, being in the other league, I didn’t get to see him that much,” Aaron Boone recently said. “To see just how talented and how many tools this guy has, it’s been impressive to witness.”
Boone and the Yankees are hoping those tools build a stellar postseason.
Chisholm went to the playoffs twice with the Marlins, but he only appeared in three games, hitting .091 with a double over 11 at-bats. The first of those games came during in 2020, when Chisholm was new to the league and pandemic-era restrictions prevented Marlins fans — typically light on attendance under normal circumstances – from attending a 7-0 loss to the Braves at Houston’s Minute Maid Park.
In 2023, Chisholm played in two postseason losses at Citizens Banks Park in Philadelphia.
The 26-year-old has never played in a true home game in the playoffs. He said it’s “surreal” that his first will happen in the Bronx.
After years of playing in front of underwhelming crowds with the Marlins, Chisholm believes Yankee Stadium’s electric atmosphere will “feed me” this October, and he’s already declared that the Yankees won’t stop “until we get that ring.”
“It’s just everything I always wanted,” Chisholm said. “I feel like in Miami we had two to three games a year where the crowd would just be there and it would be super loud, and I feel like those were always my best games of the year.
“I’ve been waiting on a moment to where I could have that every day and have that feeling that it’s gonna be big out there every night, and I gotta put it all on the line every night.”
