Cal Raleigh stands alone.
Switch-hitting is one of the hardest things to do in sports. And no one has done it more prodigiously than the Seattle Mariners’ superstar catcher.
On Tuesday night, Raleigh stepped to the plate in Kansas City and launched an absolute bomb, batting right-handed, way way way out to right field, hooking it high and far around the foul pole.
It was Raleigh’s 55th homer of the season.
That’s the most home runs ever hit by a switch-hitter in a single season.
Mickey Mantle held the record before this, from the 1961 season when he hit 54 while trying to keep up with Roger Maris in the same year that his Yankees teammate hit 61 to break Babe Ruth’s long-standing AL home run record.
Raleigh now has almost all the records there are to be had.
He broke Salvador Perez’s single-season record for home runs by a catcher, 48.
He broke the record held by Javier Lopez for home runs in a game that a player was actually playing catcher, which was 42 before Raleigh passed it with his home run on Monday.
All that’s really left, unless Raleigh goes on a crazy barrage to chase down Aaron Judge’s AL record of 62 homers, is the Mariners’ single-season franchise record. Ken Griffey Jr. holds that with 56 homers.
At this point, who is betting against Raleigh?
He knows how to break home run records, that’s for sure.
He’s rewritten almost all the books this season, including passing Mantle with a prodigious blast Tuesday night.
Might as well smash one more long-standing record. It’s been that kind of epic, magical, brilliant season for the man they call the Big Dumper.
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