From launching a 493-foot home run that was the longest in Major League Baseball’s 2025 season — eight feet farther than the second-place shot by Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout — to becoming the first rookie ever to hit four home runs in a game, Nick Kurtz produced one of the most riveting debut campaigns in MLB history last year.
On Friday night, the American League’s reigning rookie of the year and fast-rising phenom first baseman for the Athletics returned to his old stomping grounds in Chattanooga at Baylor School, where Kurtz starred as a two-sport student-athlete for the Red Raiders just a few years ago.
While the 6-foot-5, 240-pound Kurtz became the eighth MLB rookie ever to hit 36 home runs in a season, he was also once an all-state standout on the basketball court and helped lead the Red Raiders to their most recent TSSAA state semifinals appearance in 2020, when he averaged 19 points and 9.3 rebounds per game during his junior season.
“Baylor is where my life kind of started,” said the 22-year-old Kurtz, who was recently voted the 23rd-best player in all of baseball by MLB.com, one spot behind nine-time all-star first baseman Freddie Freeman of the Los Angeles Dodgers. “High school is a big stepping stone for the future. Not just as an athlete, but as a man and all-around person.
“Being back here tonight is really cool, especially being at the basketball court where I spent a lot of my time here. To come back here and see so many who played a big part in my life is special.”