ST. PETERSBURG -- Casey Legumina’s right arm has made him part of the Rays’ story this season.
Designated for assignment by the Mariners on April 21, the reliever joined Tampa Bay in a trade three days later and quickly emerged as a reliable, versatile part of the American League leaders’ bullpen.
But if you want to know Legumina’s story, you’ll have to look at his left arm. That is where you’ll find an assortment of roughly 30 tattoos, each one a carefully considered and personally meaningful representation of his journey.
“The tattoos are just kind of all about my life, where I've come from and things I've gone through,” he said recently while sitting in the home dugout at Tropicana Field.
Some of those images will make their way down Legumina’s legs and onto his feet as MLB celebrates Players' Weekend. The 29-year-old will sport a pair of specially made cleats from Diamond Dye Customs featuring several of his tattoos and other images that mean a lot to him.
Where did those ideas come from? Let’s start from the beginning.
Before Legumina could get his first tattoo, his father, Gary, said he had to wait. It was a test of dedication, in a sense, to make sure Legumina really wanted them. If he had an idea, he had to stick with it.
As it turned out, his first tattoo was a fitting one for a future big leaguer. It’s a quote from Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda: “There are three types of baseball players: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who wonder what happens.”
“It just kind of spoke to me,” Legumina said. “Like, go about your business, do your thing and leave nothing behind. Just keep going.”
When he showed the finished product to his father, Legumina revealed a late addition to the design. The quote was adjacent to Gary’s initials, GLL, a way for Legumina to recognize the most important mentor in his baseball career.
“He was a big part of my baseball life, and it was a cool way for me to honor him without telling him,” he said. “Showing him after I got the tattoo was really cool.”
Gary was there from the beginning, whether he was playing catch or sitting on a bucket to catch his son’s pitches. He was always there to offer advice on mechanics, pitch sequencing and the mentality it takes to succeed as a pitcher. They still speak after every game, even when Legumina doesn’t pitch.
“It's nice, because it's a way for me to debrief away from the field real quick,” Legumina said. “And he understands what I'm talking about and what I've gone through.”
More than most, in fact. Gary spent parts of four seasons pitching in the Minors in the 1980s, eventually reaching the Double-A level in the Dodgers’ system. That brings us to another one of Legumina’s tattoos, the one that tends to get the most attention.
It’s a replica of Gary’s 1985 Minor League Baseball card with the Vero Beach Dodgers.
Getting that in ink was a way to combine Legumina and his brother’s shared passion for baseball card collecting with his appreciation for his father’s impact on his career. And Legumina said there were some practical concerns at play, too.
“Just knowing we didn't have a lot of copies, I was like, ‘I wouldn't know what I would do if I lost it,’” he said. “So I was like, ‘OK, I'll just get a tattoo. I think that would be an easier way to never lose it.’
“He was more shocked that I got a tattoo of him, with his face on there, but yeah, he loved it.”
There are other family connections inked onto Legumina’s skin, including both his parents’ birthdays and a copy of his grandfather’s dog tags from when he served in World War II.
He has two tattoos that represent nicknames: a pair of animated legs near his wrist, for “Legs,” and a LEGO piece that also nods to a hobby he shares with his sister.
There’s also a lot of Arizona on Legumina’s arm: the street sign of the house where he grew up, the downtown Phoenix skyline (including the D-backs’ Chase Field, where he attended many games growing up) and a local mountain he frequently hiked as a kid. Born in Dallas, his family moved to the Phoenix area when he was a toddler, and he still lives there in the offseason.
“Honestly, it’s just home,” he said.
Legumina used the same word to describe Gonzaga University, where he pitched for three years, and his time there is accounted for on his arm as well. There’s a Bulldogs logo, a representation of the quote “Great day to be a Zag” and a No. 8 with a halo above it, a tribute to late Gonzaga associate head coach Danny Evans.
Legumina was drafted out of Gonzaga by the Twins in 2019, but he was traded to the Reds after the 2022 season and wound up making his MLB debut for Cincinnati in 2023. Want the details of that day? You know where to look.
You can’t miss the smokestacks on his arm, paying homage to a prominent feature at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. They’re next to a recognizable No. 42, because Legumina debuted on April 15: Jackie Robinson Day. Coincidentally, he also made his Mariners debut on April 15, 2025 … in Cincinnati.
“Kind of a full-circle moment,” he said. “It was super crazy.”
There are more, of course, each one special in its own way. But you won’t find any on his right arm, the one he needs most whenever his name’s called. At first, Legumina said, he was worried about getting an infection that would affect his ability to throw.
Now, he likes that they’re all there together. It’s just another part of his story.
“I like the one arm,” he said, smiling. “I kind of like the contrast, I guess.”