Seattle, Forever
By Julio Rodríguez | Mar 29, 2023
Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports
Para leer en Español, haz click aquí.
I’m not going to start with a fairytale story. Life isn’t always like that. I want to start with something REAL. Let’s start with an 0-for-5 story.
Early on last season we played at home against the Rangers. It was April. I’d made my MLB debut two weeks earlier — one of the greatest days of my life, something I was able to celebrate with my whole family. I was settling into the big league world, soaking it all in. Everything was pretty good, you know?? But this one game, man, I’m tellin’ you…. I think about it a lot. I started the game with four strikeouts, and in my last at bat I made contact with the ball for the first time that night. I was mad in that batter’s box. I swung hard. I hit a line drive into the left-center gap. I was flying down the baseline. Triple or inside-the-park-er for sure, I thought. And then I saw Adolis García make a Superman catch to rob me. We lost 8–6. I was 0-for-5. Four Ks. Batting .136 in 12 games.
I understood it was April. I knew I was a rookie. I got it. But it’s one thing hearing people say it to you, and it’s a whole other thing to believe it. Like really believe it. It didn’t feel early to me. I’d been waiting my whole life for this chance. Since I was hitting the tennis balls my dad saved up money for back in the Dominican. Since I was playing with Hot Wheels on the floor. Since I was pretending to be Ichiro in Loma de Cabrera. It wasn’t early to me. It was right on time. And I wanted to deliver for the people of Seattle. I wanted to show them who I could be.
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Seattle, Forever
By Julio Rodríguez | Mar 29, 2023
Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports
Para leer en Español, haz click aquí.
I’m not going to start with a fairytale story. Life isn’t always like that. I want to start with something REAL. Let’s start with an 0-for-5 story.
Early on last season we played at home against the Rangers. It was April. I’d made my MLB debut two weeks earlier — one of the greatest days of my life, something I was able to celebrate with my whole family. I was settling into the big league world, soaking it all in. Everything was pretty good, you know?? But this one game, man, I’m tellin’ you…. I think about it a lot. I started the game with four strikeouts, and in my last at bat I made contact with the ball for the first time that night. I was mad in that batter’s box. I swung hard. I hit a line drive into the left-center gap. I was flying down the baseline. Triple or inside-the-park-er for sure, I thought. And then I saw Adolis García make a Superman catch to rob me. We lost 8–6. I was 0-for-5. Four Ks. Batting .136 in 12 games.
I understood it was April. I knew I was a rookie. I got it. But it’s one thing hearing people say it to you, and it’s a whole other thing to believe it. Like really believe it. It didn’t feel early to me. I’d been waiting my whole life for this chance. Since I was hitting the tennis balls my dad saved up money for back in the Dominican. Since I was playing with Hot Wheels on the floor. Since I was pretending to be Ichiro in Loma de Cabrera. It wasn’t early to me. It was right on time. And I wanted to deliver for the people of Seattle. I wanted to show them who I could be.
I’m not going to start with a fairytale story. Life isn’t always like that.
- Julio Rodriguez
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I went home that night and watched back my at-bats. I kept looking at the clock beside my bed. It was 1 a.m., then 2, then 3. And I was just watching different swings of mine, even good ones from other games, just looking for anything to help me out. I probably watched 500 swings that night before I passed out. I got to the park the next day and I found my hitting coach and I was just like, “What are we going to do? I know I can do this…. What am I missing?” We chatted for a bit. Some technical stuff, some mindset stuff. But what it really came down to was this: Trust. I’d believed in myself my whole life. My family instilled that in me. And I’d always had confidence that the work I put in would pay off. But belief and confidence are different from trust. To me, trust is a whole other thing.
And it’s a word that has meant so much to me in my time in Seattle.
I want to tell you why.
I know I’m not the first Dominican player to have made it to the big leagues like I did. There have been plenty before me, and there will be plenty after me. But you know what we all have in common? At some point, as young men, we just had to jump — we had to trust in those around us. Our parents, brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, friends of friends. Anyone. We had to hope that they had our best interests at heart. Because it takes a village to make a ballplayer in the Dominican. I saw kids like me, kids with real talent, get lost along the way because they didn’t have the right people around them. But I was lucky. I had my dad. He was a ballplayer back in the day, and I think that’s where my passion for the game comes from. And my mom made sure I treated everybody well and played the right way.
They helped me see people for who they really are. And when I was considering my options for coming to America, I wanted to be around good people. The more time I spent talking with the Mariners, the more I started to feel something really special growing. In one of our conversations, they said something that really stuck with me: “We don’t want you to be anything other than the guy that you say you’re going to be.” They looked at me, a 16-year-old kid, and put their faith in who I thought I could be. That’s trust. You get me?? That’s trust.
And I felt that trust every step of the way to making my Mariners debut last spring in Minnesota. The team was so great with my family, making them feel right at home so they could be there to see me. To see our dreams come true. I remember so much of that day because, like, to me and my family? That was it. You understand?? That was what we dreamed of every night when we went to bed. It’s what we worked for when we got up. Each trip my dad made to Dajabón to get the tennis balls — this what it was for. He and I used to have this little routine before tryouts or big games or something like that. When I’d say goodbye to my family just before I went into the dugout, I’d talk to my dad last. He’d get my mind right and give me a hug. And that day in Minnesota, when I was leaving the hotel after saying bye to everyone who had come out to be with me, my dad came down to be with me last.
