ATLANTA -- The video went viral last week, featuring an 8-year-old Cal Raleigh forecasting what would eventually take place on Monday night. Recorded 20 years ago, on a handheld camera because smart phones did not yet exist, Raleigh offered a premonition that now carries a sense of surreal.
“I’m the Home Run Derby champ!” the Mariners catcher said in that 20-second clip from way back when, which spread like wildfire within the Mariners’ clubhouse, across social media, to national broadcasts and more leading up to the sport’s premier power-hitting event.
“The video is crazy,” Raleigh said from Truist Park, where he became the first catcher and switch-hitting winner in Derby history, and joined Ken Griffey Jr. (1994, 1998, 1999) as the only winners in Mariners history."