SEATTLE \u2014 Amongst a sea of arms in the right field bleachers on Wednesday night in T-Mobile Park, Marcus Ruelos wasn’t the tallest fan reaching for Cal Raleigh’s 60th homerun ball, but he was, by some account,s the luckiest.<\/p>\n
The 12-year-old from Maple Valley, who was sitting with his father, says that the ball landed in their section after a sweeping swing by Raleigh. It then ricocheted off multiple hands before coming to a rest.<\/p>\n
“It lands in this guy named Glen’s hands, and I go for a high five, and he just gives me the ball,” explained Marcus, “And in that moment I was just surprised, and I didn\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
“It happened so quick, he was crying, I was kind of in shock,\u201d said Marcus’ father, Galan Ruelos.<\/p>\n
The teen says that he’s been to about 10 Mariners games this season, and that baseball isn’t even his favorite sport, nor does he play it himself.<\/p>\n
However, none of that mattered, as Ruelos became the most important fan in the stadium that night. He said that within moments, he and his father were ushered away by Mariners staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time I realized what happened, that he hit a homerun, he\u2019s touching history, 60th ball, the Mariners escort us away, and everything is just a blur,\u201d Galan said.<\/p>\n
The staff then asked what it would take to get the ball back to Raleigh, who became the fourth player to smack 60 home runs in the American League, and the first catcher to do so ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is your moment, I\u2019m not going to tell you what to do, you make the decision, I\u2019ll support you,\u201d is what Galan said to his son.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, Marcus traded the ball for a signed bat, as well as tickets to the Dodgers game on Saturday. He was also given field access to batting practice on Saturday ahead of the same game with his whole family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to exchange the ball because some people would sell it for a lot of money, but I think I just wanted to give it to Cal. I think that\u2019s just the special part of it. It\u2019s his 60th homerun, and all his family was here,\u201d the 12-year-old told KOMO News while at batting practice.<\/p>\n
The boy, with his brother and parents, got to see the big leaguers up close. They even met Eugenio Su\u00e1rez while they were down on the field – although it didn’t stop there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIchiro was right next to me, that was crazy, that\u2019s the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time),” said Marcus.<\/p>\n
But to top it all off, the 12-year-old was finally able to meet face-to-face with Raleigh.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks for hitting that homerun,\u201d Marcus said in the Mariners’ dugout.<\/p>\n
Raleigh replied, \u201cYeah, of course, [I’ll] try to hit another one for you tonight,” with a smile.<\/p>\n
Marcus also got Raleigh to sign the jersey he was wearing, while the rest of his family shook hands and greeted Raleigh as well — with the whole crew taking a photo with the catcher.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet’s go win the whole freakin’ thing!\u201d said Marcus, giving a G-rated version of Raleigh’s hot-mic moment caught during the team’s wildcard berth celebration.<\/p>\n
The man, Glen, who handed the ball off to Marcus, has also been given a signed bat by the Mariners, and got to meet Raleigh the day after the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 Amongst a sea of arms in the right field bleachers on Wednesday night in T-Mobile Park,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":261968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[137027,591,4711,20415,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-261967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-60th-homerun","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-cal-raleigh","11":"tag-mariners","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115283503786481942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}