There are a lot of great baseball movies, but for Paul Brannon, there's always been one clear favorite.
Brannon is the father of Red Sox prospect Brooks Brannon, and the duo share a special connection to “The Natural." The 1984 film stars Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs, a former teenage pitching prodigy who has his dreams of a professional career turned upside down when he's shot on his way to a tryout in Chicago.
Fast forward 15 years later, and Hobbs is big-time power hitter armed with a very special bat. That bat, named Wonderboy and carved from a tree struck by lightning, bears a lightning mark on the barrel. Like Hobbs with Wonderboy, the Brannon father and son have each shown a penchant for power hitting with a personalized item close to them as they get into the box.
The Brannon family connection to the movie was established in 1989, when Paul's father (Brooks' grandfather) presented Paul -- then a catcher and first baseman at North Carolina's Kings Mountain High School -- with a golden chain necklace with a lightning bolt design modeled off of the one on the Wonderboy bat in "The Natural." Wearing that chain, Paul Brannon belted 20 home runs to set the state's high school single-season home run record and led Kings Mountain to its first state title.
Lightning had struck once with a once-in-a-lifetime moment for the Brannon family ... or so they thought.
But 33 years later, lightning struck again for the Brannon family. Right before his senior season, Brooks’ grandfather gave him a golden chain lightning bolt necklace with the same details as the one his father wore during his record-breaking campaign. During the 2022 season, Brooks blasted 20 home runs for Randleman High School, tying his father’s record. while leading Randleman High School to its second straight state title.
“It was just awesome. I think it’s pretty dadgum cool,” Brannon said. “His favorite movie was 'The Natural,' so whenever my grandpa gave him a necklace that was like that, he broke the home run record in the state of North Carolina when he hit 20 home runs, and then my grandpa gifted me one and I tied the record with 20 my senior year. ... Ever since then I have always worn it.”
Paul, who played professionally in the Mariners' system from 1990-93, spent the 2022 high school season rooting for his son to break his record. But Brooks was happy with the tie.
“We joked that it was my grandma making the wind blow to keep me from breaking it, so that we could be tied,” he said. “But I think it’s almost cooler to tie it, to know that both of our names are side by side in the record books.”
A ninth-round pick of the Red Sox in 2022, Brannon put up a .308 on-base percentage with 10 homers and 16 doubles over 93 games between High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland in 2025.