{"id":216435,"date":"2026-03-23T10:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/216435\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:57:10","slug":"johnson-hs-alum-kayson-cunningham-is-living-his-big-league-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/216435\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson HS alum Kayson Cunningham is living his big league dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a handful of big leaguers with San Antonio ties in Spring Training this year.<\/p>\n<p>Kayson Cunningham was taken in the first round with the 18th overall pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks back in July.<\/p>\n<p>He grew up going to Spring Training as a kid. Now he&#8217;s on the experiencing it from a different perspective.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being a little kid coming out to these spring training games, asking for a ball, asking for autographs, and now it&#8217;s came full circle,&#8221; said Cunningham. &#8220;And I&#8217;m the one giving the balls out, giving autographs. So it&#8217;s really a blessing, and it&#8217;s a dream come true.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The dream is now a reality for Kayson Cunningham.<\/p>\n<p>After a stellar career at Johnson High School, he&#8217;s learning what it takes to make it in the majors.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s definitely going from a pond to an ocean I&#8217;d say,&#8221; said Cunningham.&#8221;But, you know, just make, you know, the game&#8217;s about adjustments, and I&#8217;ve made a lot of huge jumps these past couple couple months. I had a really big off season, and so I&#8217;m in the weight room getting stronger, working on my game, knowing that I&#8217;m gonna have a long season ahead of me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham, who turns 20 in June, is already one of the prized prospects in the Diamondbacks organization.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s been soaking up everything he can in his first big league camp.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Watching those guys being around them it&#8217;s truly eye opening and just being around them thinking that could be me someday in the big leagues, playing with them,&#8221; said Cunningham.<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham got a little taste of Class-A ball after being draft last year.<\/p>\n<p>One of my main goals is this summer is to get called up to High-A in Hillsboro,&#8221; said Cunningham. &#8220;I was starting off in Visalia in low-A but hopefully I get that call up to high-A this year in my first pro season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When we caught up with Kayson, he picked up three base hits during his backfield game. His day at the plate caught the attention of Arizona manager Anthony Lovullo.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After I hit that double, he told me nice swing,&#8221; said Lovullo. &#8220;So that was, that was probably one of the first interactions I&#8217;ve had with him. When I got drafted. I talked to him a little bit, but yeah, I can&#8217;t wait to play with him some play for him someday.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are a handful of big leaguers with San Antonio ties in Spring Training this year. Kayson Cunningham&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-216435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}