Welcome back to “What’s Happening On This Baseball Card?” where Pitcher List asks major-leaguers to tell the story behind the action that photographers capture inside the frame of an iconic-looking baseball trading card.
Cal Raleigh achieved folk-hero status Sept. 30, 2022, when his walk-off home run against the Oakland Athletics sent the Seattle Mariners to the postseason for the first time in 21 years.
The Mariners enjoyed a respectable season in 2023, but came away disappointed because they finished a game out of the AL postseason field. Raleigh did provide a few fun moments reminiscent of Seattle’s breakthrough in ’22—notably, a 10th-inning, game-ending single at T-Mobile Park on May 31 against the dreaded New York Yankees.
Photographer Steph Chambers captured a postgame slice of the joy that came off Raleigh’s bat, getting a shot of Raleigh about to be drenched with ice-cold water by teammate Tom Murphy. Topps Stadium Club used one of Chambers’ photos for card No. 247.
Pitcher List quoted the TV broadcast, other media, and spoke with some of the parties involved to see how the image on the card came together. We bring you to a scoreless tie between the Mariners and Yankees in the bottom of the 10th, with José Caballero leading off second base as the Manfred Man and right-hander Ron Marinaccio looking in against Raleigh with a 2-2 count.
Dave Sims on Root Sports:
“Line drive, right field, this’ll do it! Here comes Cabi, ballgame over! Cal Raleigh, hero again, and the Mariners win this baby, one-nothing. They salvage a game in the series and prevent the Yankees from sweeping here in Seattle for the first time since 2014. Atta, baby, Cal!”
This ended up being one of the top highlights for the Mariners in 2023. The previous season was hard to top, after all.
“It was cool to beat the Yankees, though,” right-hander George Kirby said after getting the edge on his hometown team with eight scoreless innings.
One definitively good thing about modern Major League Baseball players is that they are unafraid to celebrate the moment. From dropping the bat after a home-run swing, to getting a key strikeout to end the sixth inning (or whenever), one never knows when the next shot of joy will come.
So, after Raleigh’s walk-off single to break a scoreless tie and beat the Yankees on the last day of May, teammates schemed to “get” Raleigh by dumping water, sports drinks, sunflower seeds, bubble gum, shaving cream—whatever munitions they had handy in the home dugout.
Photo by David Brown
“It’s typically what guys do,” Raleigh said.
Murphy grabbed a jug of ice water and went one way, and outfielder Teoscar Hernández grabbed another jug and went the other. They met near where Raleigh stood during a postgame interview with reporter Jen Mueller.
Sims called the play-by-play as he prepared to throw it to Mueller.
“Jen Mueller just avoided getting splashed on,” Sims said. “But Cal Raleigh got a whole bucket-full of cold — OHHH! He just got a second one.
“Jen, I think they’re out of cold water. You should be good to go.”
The Mariners were good to go to win the game after right-hander Justin Topa kept the Yankees off the scoreboard in the top of the 10th. Topa had a breakthrough season at age 32 in 2023 for the Mariners, and his best individual performance in a victory probably came in this game.
With the free leadoff runner on second, DJ LeMahieu hit a grounder to short that J.P. Crawford bobbled for an error trying to make a play at third base on Oswaldo Cabrera.
“Oh, boy!” Sims said.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa popped out to Eugenio Suárez, and Jake Bauers walked to load the bases. After a visit from pitching coach Pete Woodworth, Anthony Volpe hit a weak grounder to Suárez, who fielded on the run and threw home in the same motion to force the second out. With a full count, Franchy Cordero struck out on a 95 mph two-seamer on the inside corner to end the inning.
“I remember sitting down in the dugout, knowing that Cal was coming up to lead off the bottom of the 10th and just being so confident that he was going to walk it off,” Topa said in an email.
Topa had a lot on his mind sitting in the dugout with the Mariners’ lineup coming to bat. Similarly to Kirby, he had grown up a Yankees fan in upstate New York. In a fun coincidence, Topa’s family had taken him to the Raleigh Baseball Institute in Endicott, New York. Yes, that’s Raleigh — as in Cal’s uncle Matt Raleigh, who has operated the facility for more than 20 years.
After the Mariners walked it off and he got the individual “W,” Topa thought about everyone who helped him become a big leaguer, including his parents Bob and Karen.
“I was just thinking of all those trips to the facility with my mom and dad, and going to games with them,” Topa said. “My mom passed away at the end of 2019, so it seemed fitting that my first win in the big leagues was against the Yankees, and Cal played a major part in the game. I definitely felt like she had a hand in making it happen that game.”
Another reason why it’s good to celebrate the seemingly smaller moments in a long baseball season: You never know what they might mean to a teammate.
Current Mariners manager Dan Wilson was a part-timer on the broadcast team in ’23, and he happened to call the Raleigh walk-off win. Wilson said he’s always happy to watch his players celebrate a win with Gatorade dumps, or whatever methods come to mind.
Seeing Raleigh’s baseball card put a big smile on his face.
“To me, it’s always such a joyful time,” Wilson said. “That’s what really shines through in those moments, just the joy of that moment and the precursor to the cold that runs down the back of your neck at the same time.”
Wilson played a generation or two ago before the water-jug dump became more commonplace.
“I’ve got the shaving cream once before,” Wilson recalled. “This is a newer kind of a tradition with the Gatorade jug, but I love it.
“I guarantee you, Cal doesn’t forget that. You don’t forget those moments as a player, partly because your teammates appreciated it so much.”
Cal Raleigh goes bonkers by Lindsey Wasson/AP pic.twitter.com/7bkEgysoLa
— David Brown (@DavidBrown_MLB) April 16, 2025
Hernández, speaking just a few days away from winning the World Series with his current team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, remembers his time with the Mariners fondly.
“We didn’t start the season the way we wanted to, and we missed the playoffs, but we started to pick it up after this game,” Hernández said.
Hernández remembers taking a lot of responsibility for dunking players with ice water that season. A lot of thought went into things like camera angles and the positioning of the marks on the field, in order to maximize the surprise. Even though the targets typically know that the water is coming at some point.
“Sometimes we had two buckets, sometimes we had one,” Hernández said. “In that case, we have two, because we have to make it just for Cal, just to make everything special.”
Hernández said he enjoyed the look of half-terror on Raleigh’s face.
“In Seattle, when the night comes, it’s just always cold,” Hernández said. “And that ice bucket is really, really cold. So you know, he was just waiting for it a little bit scared.”
Kirby said he got dunked upon for his first major-league win, and the amount of adrenaline running through your veins is not enough to equalize the temperature of the water. “It’s shockingly cold, even though you know it’s probably coming.”
“Plus, you don’t want to be the guy that, like, turns around and spoils your own surprise,” Kirby said.
Hernández liked that Raleigh’s baseball card captures the anticipation of the ice shower, giving fans a glimpse of the moment before the moment.
Photo by David Brown
“It’s just funny that they make cards like this with those types of pictures,” Hernández said. “I think it brings more joy to the game, more excitement. So people are going to enjoy the games better now that a lot of players are doing different things to celebrate something.
“As for us, we’re just making our teammate feel better.”
Root Sports
