All-Star Home Run Derby offers $1 million prize

CLEVELAND >> Jim Thome holds the record for the longest home run in Progressive Field history, a 511-foot shot against Kansas City in 1999. Two years earlier, the Hall of Fame slugger recorded a more dubious mark during the All-Star Home Run Derby.

“I didn’t hit one,” Thome said sheepishly.

It’s a safe bet that none of the eight participants in this year’s field, which no longer includes Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich, the majors’ homerun leader, will get blanked Monday night as some of baseball’s biggest bats swing for the fences while vying for $1 million — the richest winning prize in the popular event’s 34-year history.

The players will take aim at the downtown ballpark’s towering left-field bleachers, which Mark McGwire cleared with a mammoth blast in 1997 that dented a giant Budweiser billboard. There’s a pedestrian bridge down the line that could see some action, and if the wind is blowing just so to right-center, it could give Cleveland’s own Carlos Santana an advantage.

One thing is certain: This year’s contestants are taking it very seriously.

Over the past week, Yelich, who withdrew from the competition citing a back injury, Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and several others have been practicing before their games while trying to simulate derby conditions.

On Friday, Yelich, the NL’s reigning MVP, got loose by blasting a ball out of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park that splashed in the Allegheny River only after smashing a boat’s window.

Maybe that swing took too much out of him.

As players in the Futures Game took batting practice Sunday, Major League Baseball announced Yelich is being replaced by Oakland third baseman Matt Chapman.

Yelich has dealt with back issues during the season’s first half. He was voted a starter for Tuesday’s AllStar Game, but it’s still unclear if he’ll play.