KENNESAW, Georgia — The alarm went off a little before 8 a.m. on a day when he wouldn’t normally set an alarm and could sleep for a few more hours.
As a major-league catcher, the accumulation of dings, dents and sore muscles throughout a season makes sleep vital.
But on this Saturday morning, family was more important to Cal Raleigh than rest.
With the Mariners playing in Atlanta over the weekend, his entire immediate family and a slew of aunts, uncles and cousins made their way to the area to watch him.
But the bonus for Cal was that his younger brother, Todd Jr., who everyone calls “T,” was playing in a 13U baseball tournament at North Cobb High School in nearby Kennesaw, Georgia, and everyone was going. It’s the home high school field of Harry Ford, the Mariners’ top catching prospect.
And if Cal wouldn’t have gotten up so early to attend the tournament, he wouldn’t have met the greatest scorer in NHL history.
“I ran into Wayne Gretzky today,” he said matter-of-factly while sitting in the top row of the bleachers behind the plate, surrounded by relatives.
“Really? Wayne Gretzky?” asked his cousin, Brody, who is headed to Western Carolina to play baseball next year as a second baseman.
Raleigh’s mom, Stephanie, and his two sisters met him in the lobby of the team hotel to make the drive for the 9 a.m. game.
Being up earlier than usual, Raleigh needed coffee, so they stopped in the Starbucks at the hotel.
“I was groggy because I just kind of rolled out of bed,” he said. “And there’s this guy waiting to get his coffee and I had to tap my mom to move for him. She apologized. So we go out and we are waiting for the car and I see the guy again. I looked at him and he stared back at me.”
The recognition hit him. Raleigh didn’t know what to do at first.
“Are you Wayne Gretzky?” he said.
“Yep,” Gretzky replied.
“I just said, ‘Nice to meet you,’” Raleigh recalled. “I didn’t recognize him when we were getting coffee. He asked where we were going and we told him we were going to a baseball game. He was really nice.”
“Did you tell him you played baseball for the Mariners?” Brody asked.
“No, I didn’t tell him,” he said. “I was too starstruck. It’s, like, Wayne Gretzky.”
It’s such a typical Cal Raleigh moment.
“He’s so unassuming,” said his father, Todd Sr., who helps coach T’s team. “He doesn’t act like a big-league baseball player and he would never tell you that he is one.”
Surrounded by his family — both immediate and extended — at T’s game, Cal was completely at ease. He was in his element.
In the modern world of baseball, T’s team, the Georgia-based TG Diamondbacks, has walk-up music played over a gigantic speaker. It sounds very professional.
“Now batting, Todd Raleigh!” a deep recorded voice echoed from the speaker.
And suddenly a familiar guitar riff begins to play and the familiar tenor of Tony Lewis could be heard:
“Josie’s on a vacation far away
Come around and talk it over
So many things that I want to say
You know I like my girls a little bit older.”
His walk-up song is “Your Love” by The Outfield?
Cal just shakes his head as his cousins chuckle. All the kids on his team had rap or even Latin pop songs, and T has an iconic ’80s pop classic from an English band.
“I liked the song,” T later said. “I remember listening to it with my dad and brother in the car.”
As T walked to the plate, wearing Cal’s No. 29, he ambled in a gait strikingly similar to his brother.
Upon first glance, there is no way he’s 13 years old. Having just reached 6 feet tall, T wears size-14 shoes and XL batting gloves.
In fact, he wears the same shoe size as his brother. For a while, he wore a pair of Nike cleats that Logan Gilbert gave him last season. But when Cal took him to Truist Park early Friday to work out with his teammates, T grabbed the white and pink New Balance spikes that Cal wore on Mother’s Day and then wore them during his game on Saturday. The Easton catcher’s gear he wore was also gifted/taken from big brother, who has a shoe and equipment deal.
“He pretty much raided my locker,” Cal said. “I think he has more pairs of cleats than I have. He just takes all my stuff.”
As for T’s size, Cal admitted he wasn’t close to that big at age 13.
“He’s a monster,” Cal said.
But …
“Well, actually he’s playing up a year,” Todd said. “He turned 13 about a month ago.”
“What’s that in his back pocket?” Cal asked as T digs in.
“It’s a sliding mitt,” he’s told.
“Like he needs a sliding mitt, you’ve got to be fast to have one of those,” Cal joked.
Batting left-handed in a stance and swing that is almost identical to Cal’s, T swings at a pitch away and hits a soft ground ball to second base.
It takes a second for T to get out of the batter’s box. He’s all long limbs, massive feet and a medium dumper in training.
As T ran to first, one of the cousins remarked: “Y’all run the exact same.”
“It’s a bad-looking run for both of us,” Cal said. “It’s nice and slow.”
Really everything T does on the field is similar to Cal.
“He has the same tendencies that I do on the right side and the left side,” Cal said. “Sometimes on the right side, I’ll tend to get a little more flat. And T is the same exact way and his misses will be the same as mine. Even the stance is the same. We kind of stand tall.”
The similarities are striking. He could play the younger version of Cal in a movie.
“They have the same mannerisms and they are so similar,” Todd said. “My kids look eerily alike. I look at pictures of when Cal was 8 and T was 8 and I can’t tell the difference. I will think a picture is T and my wife will say, ‘No, that’s Cal.’”
T was born when Cal was playing at a 13U baseball tournament in Tennessee. He had a broken finger and wasn’t playing. Todd, who was the head coach at the University of Tennessee, was in Starkville, Mississippi, for a series.
“A parent came and got me and drove me to the hospital,” Cal said. “My dad had to jump in a rental car and drive to Knoxville. He made it just in time.”
There was an age gap for Cal, the oldest of four kids with sisters Emma and Carly in the middle and T as the baby.
“I’m not ashamed to admit I changed his diaper before,” he said.
As Cal watches his brother, remarking about how much he loves to play, a hard foul tip strikes T in the mask, knocking it sideways on his face.
“Wear it!” both he and Brody say in unison.
“He’s pretty tough,” Cal added. “His blocking has gotten a lot better. He didn’t like working on it much last year, but what 12-year-old does?”
Does T listen to his advice?
After some discussion with Brody, they arrive at the answer: “Sometimes he listens.”
“No, but he really does love to play,” Cal said.
At one point in the game, Stephanie hands Cal a dozen of his baseball cards to sign for T’s teammates.
After the game, he takes pictures with several of the kids and a group photo with all the family and friends in attendance.
Cal wants to talk with T before the next game starts. He won’t be able to stay and watch the entire second game. They talk quietly about the game and other stuff. Cal sticks around a little longer to watch T’s first at-bat of the second game, which is a strikeout.
“He got a hit in the first at-bat after we left because of course he did,” Cal said.
He has videos on his phone of T hitting homers this season and is proud to show them.
“There’s a big age gap,” Todd said. “But they are so thick. They hang out all the time. I hear them arguing about something or when they’re playing video games. They’ll go work out for baseball together. They’ll just go grab lunch. You don’t see the gap. It’s unique. I know people get older sometimes they may not want to bother with that stuff, but they’re funny.”
Maybe T Raleigh will one day replace his older brother and wear No. 29 for the Mariners.
Will we be able to tell the difference?
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