ATLANTA — To know what Monday night meant, you have to go back to the video.
Cal Raleigh was 8 years old when he hoisted a bat in his backyard and declared himself a Home Run Derby champ. The footage, courtesy of his father, made the rounds when Raleigh was announced as a contestant.
It hits differently a few days later.
“The video is crazy,” Raleigh said. “I mean, I don’t know where they found that thing in the archives. Just kind of surreal.”
Plenty of kids dream those types of dreams. Few turn them into reality.
How rare is this life Raleigh is living right now?
Consider the fact he’s been one of the hottest hitters on earth for the duration of MLB’s first half. He’s a switch-hitting catcher who hardly ever gets a day off. He smashed 38 home runs before the All-Star Break, falling just one shy of tying Barry Bonds for the most before the break in league history.
That’s the rarest of rare air.
Now Raleigh can add Home Run Derby champion to his running list of accomplishments. The Seattle Mariners star out-slugged Rays third baseman Junior Caminero en route to winning the annual slugging competition Monday at Truist Park. He became the first catcher and first switch hitter to win MLB’s prestigious slugging competition.
“Pretty cool,” Raleigh said at a dais after it was all over. “Hopefully can inspire some future catchers, future switch hitters out there.”
Then, Raleigh turned to his dad.
“Got to give credit to this guy right here,” he said. “He’s the one that made me both of them: catcher and a switch hitter.”
Backed by his father, Todd, who pitched, and his younger brother, Todd Jr., who served as catcher, Raleigh slugged 54 homers across three rounds, including 18 in the finale to best the 22-year-old slugger from the Rays. In his first round, Raleigh hit 10 from the left side and seven from the right.
On the field after the game, Raleigh handed the shining Home Run Derby trophy to his father. He wore a celebratory chain around his neck and handed a commemorative title belt to his brother.
“The fact you win it with family — super special,” Raleigh said. “Just, what a night.”
In the afterglow of victory, Todd thought back to those early days when he taught his son to switch hit with a big ball and a red bat. Todd is a former college baseball coach whose career included a stint as the head coach at Tennessee, so baseball was in Cal Raleigh’s blood from the start.
“Did it from the first day, when he was in diapers — literally,” Todd said of switch hitting.
As Cal grew older, Todd put his own career on pause, largely to help his son develop and overcome doubts. Now, as Raleigh deals with success on a larger stage, Todd counsels him differently.
“Anybody that’s ever played baseball as a kid dreams of stuff like this,” Todd said. “I dreamed of it. He dreamed of it. When you’re a parent, you look at it differently because you want your kids to be happy.”
In winning the derby, Raleigh takes home the $1 million prize and the now-annual Home Run Derby chain. He joins Ken Griffey Jr. as the only Mariners to win the competition, with Griffey winning in 1994, 1998 and 1999.
Despite the presence of Team Raleigh and all that sentimentality, it took less than an inch for the backstop to make it from the semifinals. He was tied with the Athletics’ Brent Rooker after the first round, but Raleigh’s longest home run clocked in at 470.61 feet, and Rooker’s longest was 470.53 feet. The decimals were so close that there’s doubt over whether Hawk-Eye radars can measure the distance with such pinpoint accuracy.
But distance serves as the tiebreaker in the first round, meaning Raleigh had just enough to make it to the semifinals. Call it another break in an increasingly charmed summer.
“An inch off and I’m not even in the final four, which is amazing,” Raleigh said. “So I guess I got lucky there. One extra biscuit.”
With 19 blasts in the semis, Raleigh had more than enough to hold off Oneil Cruz and his 13 long balls. Caminero topped out at 15 in the finale.
After Raleigh hugged his teammates and sat on the ESPN set, he walked over to home plate and posed for pictures with his new hardware, his father and brother right there by his side.
“I don’t know why that we’ve been blessed like this,” Todd Raleigh said. “God is great, and I just, I can’t put it in words. This derby was huge when we heard about it. When we involved the family, the complexion of it changed. It was all a family thing, and I thought, ‘You know what? If he doesn’t hit any home runs, we’ll still be good.’”
