SEATTLE -- Glenn Mutti-Driscoll was at the right place at the right time when Cal Raleigh crushed his 60th homer of the season on Wednesday night, but it was the instincts that he immediately showed that quickly made him a favorite of both the T-Mobile Park crowd and Raleigh himself.
After the ball ricocheted into his hands, Mutti-Driscoll celebrated for about 15 seconds before quickly passing the coveted keepsake to a youngster nearby.
“The whole thing was surreal,” Mutti-Driscoll said Thursday. “It just was happening so fast, and like, standing there with it, and I was just looking down at a kid, and he deserves more than me. ... And I guess if it's helping bring whatever -- baseball's reputation [has] those sorts of feel-good stories.”
The youngster whom Mutti-Driscoll passed the ball to was quickly approached by the Mariners’ guest relations staff seeking an exchange for other memorabilia in order to eventually get the ball to Raleigh, who became just the seventh player in history to eclipse the 60-homer threshold.
It’s likely that the ball could’ve sold for a pretty penny -- Aaron Judge’s 62nd homer in 2022, which set the American League record, went for $1.5 million at auction. While Raleigh’s 60th probably wouldn’t have sold for that much, it still could’ve netted something significant.
Yet, the only consideration for Mutti-Driscoll in the moment that he hoisted history was to, quite literally, pass it on -- and to a child, who almost certainly will never forget it.
“I was a minor celebrity,” a grinning Mutti-Driscoll said.
The story spread rapidly on social media, given the good-natured gesture and for how many smartphones were already out to capture Raleigh’s historic moment. That made it easy for the Mariners to track down Mutti-Driscoll and invite him and his family to the ballpark the very next day for a pregame meet-and-greet with Raleigh on the field before Thursday’s series finale vs. the Rockies.
Raleigh gifted Mutti-Driscoll a bat that featured his signature along with a personalized message, and he signed two baseballs for Mutti-Driscoll’s children -- Ethan, 14, and Aiden, 10 -- then posed for pictures with them in front of the home dugout, after conversing for roughly five minutes.
Catherine, Mutti-Driscoll’s wife, was also on hand, and made the family’s logistical arrangements to get to the ballpark in time. With school recently back in session, Ethan had to miss curriculum night, and Aidan had soccer practice. But a meet-and-greet with the potential AL MVP less than 24 hours after he led Seattle to its first AL West title since 2001 was probably excusable.
“I hope we look OK,” joked Catherine, who was wearing a Mariners-themed Spongebob Squarepants jersey from a giveaway on Aug. 3. “We didn’t have any time to primp. It was pretty much, ‘Get in the car!’”
The family actually wasn’t with Mutti-Driscoll for Wednesday’s big moment, as he was with co-workers. And they timed up their company outing perfectly, purchasing a group set of seats for $19 apiece in the right-field bleachers a little over a week ago, targeting the possibility that the Mariners might be in a postseason-clinch scenario, which became a rapid reality with the club’s 15-1 stretch dating back to Sept. 6.
A native of the Midwest, who actually had a Ken Griffey Jr. shirt from way back when, Mutti-Driscoll has lived in the Seattle area for the past 19 years and attends a handful of games per year -- including his 45th birthday earlier this season.
Mutti-Driscoll is a licensed hydrogeologist for Strata Geosciences, a company that he just founded in April. Though they’ll probably have a hard time topping Wednesday’s experience, it’s also probably safe to say that they’ve found an epic new way to cultivate company camaraderie away from the office.