I literally gasped when I saw what Big Al Delia looks like today. He’s like bite-sized Al now. This is like when Oreo introduced the 100 calorie Thin Baked Chocolate Wafer Crisps your mom started buying at Costco because she wanted to lose weight. Just completely changed up the snack game one day without even asking. I wanted the Oreo minis, not some garbage that tastes like stale cracker. At least 100 calorie Al is still mashing dingers out in Red Bank, New Jersey six years after he went viral at the Little League World Series:

It’s hard to explain to people who don’t remember just how viral this was went back in 2017. NJ online sports betting wasn’t even legal yet. I still remember I was in Wildwood when I was first introduced to Big Al. That’s how much of a cultural impact he had. There’s just something about America and its obsession with fat children and 2017 might’ve been the peak. We were coming off of Lil Terio and Honey Boo Boo four years earlier. Akshat the Incredible was going viral for dancing in India a couple years later, and we were looking for our next beef cake to carry the torch.

Enter Big Al, wtook the nation by storm. “I hit dingers,” in that nasally voice, was said for the next six months as much as, “You can’t handle the truth!” was uttered in 1992. He was on late night shows, ESPN, and he even linked up with Rhys Hoskins during the LLWS:

It’s awesome to see stars from the LLWS grown up and still doing cool things. I wonder what that Danny Almonte kid is doing.