{"id":183412,"date":"2025-09-26T17:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/183412\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T17:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T17:31:10","slug":"cal-raleighs-60th-homer-sparks-a-chain-of-feel-good-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/183412\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal Raleigh’s 60th homer sparks a chain of feel-good events"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cal Raleigh<\/a> got his 60th home run ball.<\/p>\n

Two fans \u2014 a 45-year-old man who originally caught the historic ball and a 12-year-old boy who was gifted the ball by the kind stranger sitting behind him<\/a> \u2014 got bats signed by the Seattle Mariners star catcher.<\/p>\n

And baseball fans got to enjoy a feel-good story as the 2025 MLB season winds down.<\/p>\n

Raleigh\u2019s historic 60th home run, second long ball Wednesday night, came against Colorado Rockies reliever Angel Chivilli in the bottom of the eighth inning. The ball soared 389 feet into the right field stands and ended up in the hands of longtime Seattle resident Glenn Mutti-Driscoll, a licensed hydrogeologist who was attending the game with some co-workers.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t stay Mutti-Driscoll\u2019s possession for long.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was standing with it for 15 or 20 seconds and there was a kid in front of me,\u201d Mutti-Driscoll said Thursday in an interview, via the Seattle Times<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In that moment, Mutti-Driscoll was moved to make an incredibly generous gesture. He handed the historic and potentially quite valuable ball to a 12-year-old boy he had never met.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing was surreal. It just was happening so fast,\u201d Mutti-Driscoll said. \u201cAnd standing there with it and I guess looking down at the kid, and he deserves it more than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cal <\/p>\n

Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh celebrates in the dugout after his 60th home run of the season.<\/p>\n

(Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The recipient was Marcus Rueblos, a sixth-grader from Maple Valley, Wash., who was attending the game with his family. <\/p>\n

\u201cA genuine act of kindness, a true gentleman,\u201d Marcus\u2019 father Galan Rueblos later wrote on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cMarcus was in tears. We were all in shock. The fans were going crazy!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mariners security quickly whisked Marcus and Galan Rueblos away to get the ball authenticated. According to an MLB Network report<\/a>, Mutti-Driscoll told Marcus at the time to make sure Raleigh got the ball. Rueblos said during a radio appearance Thursday that his son would have done that anyway. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy son whispered to me and said, \u2018Dad, because it\u2019s Cal, I want him to have [the ball],\u2019\u201d Rueblos told KIRO-FM (97.3)<\/a> in Seattle. \u201cHe was never thinking, are we going to keep it for money? That wasn\u2019t even a thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, told The Times on Thursday that Raleigh\u2019s 60th home run ball likely would have been \u201ca six-figure ball\u201d had it gone on the auction block.<\/p>\n

Marcus received a Raleigh-signed bat and an invitation to batting practice in exchange for the ball, according to the Mariners. Rueblos said his son had hoped to meet Raleigh the night of the historic home run but was unable to since the game was still in progress at the time.<\/p>\n

Marcus understood and was thrilled with the experience, Rueblos added \u2014 and was still \u201chugging the bat\u201d the next morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were never thinking about how much the ball was worth, or the most we could get,\u201d Rueblos said. \u201cWe have the future MVP, hopefully, and [Marcus] touched history, that\u2019s kind of more precious; he\u2019ll live with that forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The feel-good didn\u2019t stop there either. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Mariners launched a search for the mysterious stranger who had gifted the ball to someone he had never met. Eventually, they tracked down Mutti-Driscoll and were able to get him, his wife Catherine and their sons Ethan, 14, and Aiden, 10, to T-Mobile Park for a pregame meet-and-greet with Raleigh<\/a> before that night\u2019s game against the Rockies.<\/p>\n

Raleigh gave Ethan and Aiden signed balls and presented their father with a bat, on which Big Dumper had written, \u201cGlenn, thanks for being a a good guy & nice catch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raleigh\u2019s two home runs Wednesday helped the Mariners defeat the Colorado Rockies 9-2 and clinch the American League West Division title for the first time since 2001. In doing so, the player lovingly known as Big Dumper<\/a> became the seventh player in MLB history to hit at least 60 home runs in a season (joining Babe Ruth<\/a>, Roger Maris<\/a>, Sammy Sosa<\/a>, Mark McGwire<\/a>, Barry Bonds<\/a> and Aaron Judge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal Raleigh got his 60th home run ball. Two fans \u2014 a 45-year-old man who originally caught the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[34975,30891,1993,1230,29603,5460,108130,2947,108128,5463,363,108129,51876,108131,99,16597,2384],"class_list":["post-183412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ball","tag-bat","tag-cal-raleigh","tag-colorado-rockies","tag-fan","tag-game","tag-historic-60th-home-run","tag-marcus","tag-marcus-rueblos","tag-mariners","tag-mlb","tag-mutti-driscoll","tag-raleigh","tag-seattle-times","tag-sports","tag-thursday","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}