Cal Raleigh adds a historic Derby win to his record-breaking season - ESPN

AROUND NOON EVERY day, Caleb John Raleigh — Cal to most, the «Big Dumper» to those who prefer to pay homage to his profound posterior, and the best catcher in the world to everyone — goes to work. The vast majority of baseball players pull up to the stadium between 3 and 4 p.m. for a 7 p.m. game. Raleigh would never. He needs the extra time to study the tendencies of opposing hitters, formulate a game plan for that night's starting pitcher, nurse the incessant ailments inherent to his position in the training room, stay strong in the weight room, hone his left- and right-handed swings in the batting cage and set an example for the rest of the Seattle Mariners. For hours every day, Raleigh consumes baseball because baseball consumes him.

«I really love the game of baseball. I really do,» he said. «I love the scouting reports. I love catching. I love running the game. I love hitting, obviously. It's a game that you can love so much — and at the same time, when things go wrong, it can be one of the worst things in the world. That's kind of what makes it so great, right?»

It's July 5, the day after Raleigh celebrated another home run with fireworks with some teammates in South Lake Union, a mile from the Space Needle and 3 miles from T-Mobile Park, where Raleigh has spent 2025 doing things never done by a catcher in 150 years of major league baseball. Raleigh's numbers heading into this week's All-Star break elucidate the magnitude of his achievements — 38 home runs, 1.011 OPS, 82 RBIs, all in just 94 games — but it's the names he's chasing that give them gravitas. With 66 games left this season, Raleigh is threatening to break Mickey Mantle's single-season home run record for a switch-hitter (54) and Ken Griffey Jr.'s