With a nickname like "Late Night LaMonte," you know there's a good story behind it. For San Francisco Giants left fielder LaMonte Wade Jr. (pictured, center), the suggestive sobriquet stems from stellar statistics. Over the 2021 regular season, Wade Jr. had a mediocre .253 batting average. A funny thing happened whenever the stakes were higher, though: Wade Jr. played better. With two outs and runners in scoring position, his average jumped to .407, and he hit a staggering .565 in the ninth inning. Coming from an athletic family in Maryland, his parents Emily (pictured, left) and LaMonte Wade Sr. (right) have been behind LaMonte Jr. every step of the way. They do, however, have lives of their own which occasionally interfere with their cheerleading duties. On Monday, LaMonte Jr. and the Giants defeated their rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in game three to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five divisional series. Meanwhile, Emily was busy competing in a table tennis tournament. "Shows where her priorities are," joked the gentle Giant before the game. "But, no, she’s having fun with it. They will definitely be watching." As it turns out, Wade Jr. is in no position to cast stones about his mom's pastime. He himself honed his hand-eye coordination and reflexes playing with the family, and even training with a ball-shooting table tennis robot. "We've got a ping-pong robot at home," he explains. "If nobody wants to play, I just put the robot on, and it'll shoot balls back and forth to me. That's my favorite thing. Besides baseball, I love ping-pong." Wade Jr. could probably write off the paddle, robot, balls and other supplies as business expenses, as they contribute directly to his success at work. "Oh, it definitely helps out with hand-eye coordination," he says, and he has the stats to back it up. While LaMonte Wade Jr. may have earned a reputation as a clutch hitter, a trait which may come in handy in Thursday's winner-take-all Game 5 with the Dodgers, he has no illusions about his place in the domestic ping-pong hierarchy. "My mom is probably the best in the house now," he freely admits. Sounds like it's time for "Late Night LaMonte" to spend some more late nights with the robot.

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