In the fall of 2018, I stood outside the Mariners’ complex in Peoria waiting to meet up with a promising young prospect named Julio Rodríguez. Julio was fresh off a dominating performance in the Dominican Summer League, having finished his pro debut season slugging .525 while walking almost as often as he struck out. Julio and I had been corresponding off and on for a while by then, and I thought I had a measure of the person I was about to encounter. I watched as a red-clad figure appeared across the complex parking lot, steadily growing larger—quickly, too quickly for the player noted as 6’2”—until, when he was about fifty feet away, this gargantuan figure hollered KATE!
Julio Rodríguez is the 2022 AL Rookie of the Year
