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The job of a catcher is largely to catch. You use the force of your very large, very muscular body to absorb the force of about 150 pitches that are thrown at inhuman speeds. The rest of the time, you are collaborating with the pitcher on what pitches to throw and where. Then there’s a lot of downtime between innings, during which you sometimes hit very badly. Catchers are there to catch, not hit. Unitasker, shockingly hard job, extremely underrated as an activity.
The job of the Seattle Mariners is to lose, but hilariously.
Cal Raleigh is a catcher for the Seattle Mariners, and he is doing something that both catchers and Seattle Mariners players are not known for doing, which is to absolutely rake. He is raking so hard that it’s kind of funny? There is almost not much else to say about it.
Okay, maybe one thing. Watch Cal Raleigh enough and you come to notice something else about him, which is that he, like your author, is ambidextrous. Unlike your author, though, he is ambidextrous in a way that is actually impressive, hitting off pitchers in ways that exploit their weaknesses no matter their handedness. Entire bullpen strategies have been crafted around matching a pitcher’s handedness to their opposing batters’, so they can work with a more generous strike zone. You cannot do that with Cal Raleigh. He will show up on the other side of the box and launch something to the moon anyway. He has done it before and he will do it again.
He looks boyish a little, kind, friendly, the kind of person you wanna smoke a rack of ribs with and talk about how much you love your partner. Most of his life is downtime, as with any ballplayer, and then every so often he calmly launches a corner-painted full-count four-seamer to the upper deck, barely taking time to celebrate, absolutely routine day in the office, just a dude out there having fun like it’s nothing. He did this for his 50th home run of the season, something no catcher in baseball history has done before. Watch his reaction, or non-reaction, as it were. He did this before September. There is a whole month left in the season. He is on pace to – we will try not to jinx it – tie the American League home run record.
Like the other person I wrote about this season, Cal Raleigh is breaking baseball in ways that are both casual and astonishing, like he was always meant to be there but nonetheless wholly freakish in the outcomes. Fresh rookies don’t hit inside-the-parkers, and catchers don’t hit 50 dingers in a season. Other sports are amazing for singular achievements, clutch plays, dynasties. Baseball, more game than sport, is entertaining when someone walks into a space where the same thing is usually supposed to happen, and it very much does not happen that way, consistently, for six months.
Cal Raleigh has been a hero for the Mariners for a few years now, because he did have a clutch play – one that sent the Mariners to October for the first time in 21 years. Now he’s on such a tear that we have to just step back and witness. Root against him and you’re a cop.
The man is, on face, unrelentingly wholesome. He did the Home Run Derby this year. His father pitched to him. His brother caught for him. Of course he won.