Growing up as a baseball fan, there are plenty of dramatic victories and thrilling performances I can recall that helped the team I was rooting for at the time. But Yoan Moncada’s leadoff home run, in a run-of-the-mill Triple-A game last week, instantly enters the conversation as one of the most physically stunning feats I have ever seen on a baseball field in person.

His blast sucked all of the air from the lower bowl of the stadium for a half-second in one collected gasp from the crowd, and a confused smattering of applause became cheers as fans transitioned from being uncertain about where the ball landed, to accepting they might just never know.

.@whitesox #1 prospect Yoan Moncada launched a HR to lead things off in the bottom of the 1st inning! #seeya #jackie42 pic.twitter.com/uzYSBEQ1eS — Charlotte Knights (@KnightsBaseball) April 18, 2017

Scouts — who spend much of their time combing through games far more talent-starved than a stacked Charlotte Knights team facing the Pawtucket Red Sox — talk about chasing these revelatory moments, where major league tools leap out at them from off the field and they can catch a fleeting, glittering glimpse of a dreamy future.

Pretending that Moncada in Triple-A was my such moment is a bit like Christopher Columbus discovering America, but it was no less personally revelatory. The incredible swiftness of his swing, combined with immediate and shocking power, confirmed on contact that not only was the ball gone, but incredibly gone, and possibly out of the mild confines of the stadium.

The last time I heard such a sound in person was last April, when Nomar Mazara drilled a flat Mat Latos fastball, and his arcing drive quickly became out of scale with the dimensions of the playing field at then-U.S. Cellular Field. The reverberating crack shook awake a weekend crowd that was still filing in and getting settled, and hung a brief dread over Latos’ day, because with such a force working against him, he must be in danger.

Despite his hot start, despite his insane power and universal scouting acclaim, Mazara was far from above rookie struggles and an often grueling adjustment to higher-level competition, and the same goes for Moncada. I have seen Moncada swing over enough sliders to know his issues with spin are very real, and will be difficult to endure at times for a fanbase that has already gotten enough hints of his brilliance to expect it constantly, especially since his eye for recognizing fastball location can seem so keen.

But in one moment it became crystalline clear why Moncada is special, and why everyone who sees him is rightly more fascinated in the dizzying possibilities of what he could be than hung up on cravings for more contact and precision.

The Knights were at home on Tuesday, so the game was truly led off by a comebacker that glanced off Carson Fulmer’s cleat and seemed to confuse Moncada at second base. He nonchalantly put his glove down in front of it and booted it, as if in a trance that would provide plenty of fodder for comments by Sox coaches that he needs to become a guy who focuses on every play. But most of the people who saw that play will have forgotten it by next week, and will still be telling people about Moncada swiping a flip from his shortstop Jose Vinicio with his bare hand, and in one motion pivoting and firing a throw to first that made the whole play look like a video that had suddenly begun to play at a higher speed.

I don’t know how good Moncada will be. We can set a reasonable floor as a second baseman with a big enough arm and athleticism to be at least an average defender, one who hits for enough pop and draws enough walks to be 5-10 percent above average on offense, at an up the middle position. Sometimes the optimism about his ability to fix his strikeout problems seems to be boil down to thinking that someone that skilled and quick must be able to figure things out, and maybe that’s not even bad logic.

All I can say is that you should see him play. You must see him play. And in a rebuild, where fans are looking for a reason to care again, he is one.