Pete Alonso got to 40 home runs on the day his son Teddy turned one, and he did not get there quietly. He hit Nos. 39 and 40 in the same game, in an Orioles win over Toronto, after changing his walk-up music for the birthday boy. A one-year-old has no opinion on walk-up music. Everybody else in the building did.

That is the whole story and it is a good one. Baseball gives you 162 chances to have a moment and almost none of them land on the exact day you'd script them. This one did.

Pete Alonso 40 home runs: what actually happened

The reporting out of Baltimore frames it as a birthday bash, which is about right. Alonso changed the song, Teddy turned one, and the swing did the rest. Two out of the park in a single afternoon, the second of them the round number that has followed Alonso around his entire career. The Orioles won the game.

What I like about it is the total lack of subtlety. Some guys mark a family milestone with a glove tap or a point at the stands. Alonso announced it over the PA system and then hit two baseballs into the seats. That is a man who understands theater.

Why 40 home runs still means something for Pete Alonso

Forty is one of the few counting numbers in this sport that has survived the analytics era with its dignity intact. It is not 30, which a lot of good players reach. It is not 50, which requires a season to break the right way. Forty is the line where a slugger stops being a guy who hits home runs and becomes a guy whose job is home runs.

Alonso has been that guy since the jump. checked the almanac: he hit 53 as a rookie in 2019, which passed Aaron Judge's 52 from two years before that, and those are the two biggest first-year power seasons the game has ever produced. Seven seasons later the swing has not gotten quieter. It has just moved addresses.

There is a version of a career like this that ages badly, where the power is the only thing and it leaves in a hurry around 30. Alonso keeps declining that version. The bat speed stays, the approach stays, the number keeps arriving in September like it has a reservation.

What comes next for Alonso and the Orioles

The Blue Jays are back at Camden Yards this evening at 6:36 ET, which means Alonso gets another crack at the same pitching staff he just took deep twice. Late September does not leave much runway. Whatever he adds to 40 he is going to have to add fast, and the fun part of a round number is that the next one always feels closer than it is.

For the Orioles, this is the kind of day that keeps a clubhouse loose no matter what the standings look like. A teammate's kid turns one, the ballpark plays a silly song, and the big man delivers twice. You cannot manufacture that. You can only be lucky enough to be there when it shows up.

As for Teddy, he will not remember a second of it. He will see the video for the rest of his life. There are worse birthday presents than being the reason your dad changed his entrance music and then hit two home runs.

What I'm watching next: whether Alonso keeps the new walk-up song. Ballplayers are the most superstitious people on earth, and that song is now 2 for 2.