Cal Raleigh got his 60th home run ball.
Two fans — 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 — got bats signed by the Seattle Mariners star catcher.
And baseball fans got to enjoy a feel-good story as the 2025 MLB season winds down.
Raleigh’s historic 60th home run, his 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.
It didn’t stay Mutti-Driscoll’s possession for long.
“I was standing with it for 15 or 20 seconds and there was a kid in front of me,” Mutti-Driscoll said Thursday in an interview, via the Seattle Times.
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.
“The whole thing was surreal. It just was happening so fast,” Mutti-Driscoll said. “And standing there with it and I guess looking down at the kid, and he deserves it more than me.”
The recipient was Marcus Rueblos, a sixth-grader from Maple Valley, Wash., who was attending the game with his family.
“A genuine act of kindness, a true gentleman,” Marcus’ father Galan Rueblos later wrote on Facebook. “Marcus was in tears. We were all in shock. The fans were going crazy!”
Mariners security quickly whisked Marcus and Galan Rueblos away to get the ball authenticated. According to an MLB Network report, 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.
“My son whispered to me and said, ‘Dad, because it’s Cal, I want him to have [the ball],’” Rueblos told KIRO-FM (97.3) in Seattle. “He was never thinking, are we going to keep it for money? That wasn’t even a thought.”
Ken Goldin, founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, told The Times on Thursday that Raleigh’s 60th home run ball likely would have been “a six-figure ball” had it gone on the auction block.
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.
Marcus understood and was thrilled with the experience, Rueblos added — and was still “hugging the bat” the next morning.
“We were never thinking about how much the ball was worth, or the most we could get,” Rueblos said. “We have the future MVP, hopefully, and [Marcus] touched history, that’s kind of more precious; he’ll live with that forever.”
The feel-good didn’t stop there either.
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 before that night’s game against the Rockies.
Raleigh gave Ethan and Aiden signed balls and presented their father with a bat, on which Big Dumper had written, “Glenn, thanks for being a a good guy & nice catch.”
Raleigh’s two home runs Wednesday helped the Mariners defeat the 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 became the seventh player in MLB history to hit at least 60 home runs in a season (joining Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Aaron Judge).
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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