On October 9, 2023, Travis Gienger used the help of a crane to carefully place a massive gourd on the scale at the 50th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay in California.

Weighing in at 2,749 pounds, Gienger’s pumpkin not only won the championship, it broke the previous world record.

With a passion for horticulture that dates back 30 years, this wasn’t the first pumpkin he’d grown in a patch. But early on, he knew it was special. As it began to grow perfectly round like a basketball—and being that it was 2023— he aptly named the giant pumpkin “Michael Jordan,” after the greatest basketball player of all time.