Denver, Colorado - The 2021 MLB Home Run Derby was one for the record books as Pete Alonso of the New York Mets got down to business early and often, defending his home run crown from 2019.

Alonso (26) stole the show at the only other All-Star competition bigger than the official game itself.

He was swinging for the fence among other baseball bashers like Matt Olson (Oakland A’s), Trey Mancini (Baltimore Orioles), Joey Gallo (Texas Rangers), Trevor Story (Colorado Rockies), Salvador Perez (KC Royals), Juan Soto (Washington Nationals), and Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani (LA Angels), who also holds the league lead in homers.

Each heavy hitter showed up and belted souvenir after souvenir to fans in the stands.

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In the first round, Mancini (24-23) and Story (20-19) advanced to the second round.

But there was shock when Ohtani, who just broke the single-season home run record for a Japanese-born player, came up short in a swing-off (31-28) after two overtimes to Soto.

Alonso made headlines as well when he crushed an event-high 35 homers to send Perez packing (35-28), also a derby first-round record.

The second round saw Mancini, a recent cancer survivor in 2020, slip by Colorado’s own Story, who lost by just one dinger (13-12). Alonso kept his groove going by allowing Soto to bat first so he could easily swing his way past him by one and onto the final round to face Mancini (16-15).

It was more of the same in many ways as Alonso watched while Mancini set the bar with 22 homers. Then all Mancini could do was sit back as the defending champ stepped up and blasted home runs one after another to claim his second-straight title with 23.

After two years of competing in the derby, Pete Alonso is now the first player to hit 100 or more home runs with a total of 131.