MLB star Cal Raleigh wears a special catcher’s mitt. It has a Clemson connection
Cal Raleigh never made it to Clemson.
But, in a way, the MLB 2025 home runs leader and Seattle Mariners superstar catcher pays tribute to a Tigers baseball career that never was in every game.
As Raleigh has taken pro baseball by storm this year — smashing a league-best 60 home runs, and putting the Mariners on the doorstep of their first ever World Series – he’s done so with the number 220 subtly stitched into his deep green catcher’s mitt.
For Raleigh, only the seventh player in MLB history to hit 60 home runs in a season, the number is a reminder to play twice as hard as everyone else.
And the originator of the “220” phrase is none other than Jack Leggett, the former Clemson baseball coach Raleigh had committed to play for out of high school — before Leggett was unexpectedly fired in 2015, prompting Raleigh to decommit.
“A while back, I told him, ‘Everybody else plays at 110,’” Leggett said, referencing the standard voltage for an electric wall plug. “If you just plug your fingers into the light socket, that’s what comes out. But you, you’ve gotta play at 220 — 220 volts.”
A throwaway comment about playing with twice as much energy as anyone else became a running bit. Now Leggett — a close family friend of the Raleighs who coached Cal’s father and uncle in college — will text Cal before big games.
He’ll write: “220.” Nothing else.
“And he knows exactly what that means,” Leggett told The State. “Play hard.”
Before MLB stardom, Clemson was Raleigh’s ‘dream school’
Raleigh and the Mariners are in the middle of a dream 2025 season. Despite a 13-4 home loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, the Mariners are up 2-1 in the American League Championship Series and two wins away from their first-ever World Series appearance. Games 4 and 5 are Thursday and Friday in Seattle.
And their catcher is right in the middle of it. Raleigh, 28, hit a career-high 60 home runs during the regular season; set the league record for single-season home runs by a catcher; and broke Ken Griffey Jr.’s Seattle franchise record of 56 home runs. A 2025 All-Star selection, he’s been remarkably consistent and durable at catcher.
But long before he became a viral sensation and Mariners fan favorite nicknamed “Big Dumper” because of his noticeably large backside, Raleigh was a senior at Smoky Mountain High School in western North Carolina, dead set on playing for Leggett and the Clemson baseball team just like his dad had done years earlier.
Leggett first met the Raleigh family in the late 1970s, when he was Vermont’s baseball coach and recruiting one of Cal’s uncles to play for him at UVM. Todd Raleigh (Cal’s father) and Matt Raleigh (another one of Cal’s uncles) were so sold on Leggett they moved 1,000 miles south from Vermont to the North Carolina mountains to play baseball for him at Western Carolina in the late 1980s.
“I was surrounded by Raleighs,” Leggett joked.
So there wasn’t much of a question of where Cal was going to college. His dad had played for Leggett. His uncle had played for Leggett. And Leggett was wrapping up a Hall of Fame career at Clemson — 24 seasons, nearly 1,000 wins, six College World Series appearances and 21 major league players.
When he signed his national letter of intent to play for Clemson in 2014, Raleigh, a high school All-American catcher, told a local newspaper that the Tigers were his “dream school” and that playing for Leggett was a “dream come true.”
“I always wanted to go to Clemson,” Raleigh told the paper.
What if Cal Raleigh had played at Clemson?
Plans changed quickly in June 2015 when then-Clemson athletic director Dan Radakovich made the controversial decision to fire Leggett, the school’s all-time winningest baseball coach, after 24 seasons. The move came after a number of seasons ended in disappointing early NCAA Tournament exits.
And it prompted one of Clemson’s best recruits — Raleigh — to look elsewhere.
Leggett said the Raleighs asked Clemson to release Cal from his binding national letter of intent almost immediately after they heard Leggett had been fired after the 2015 season ended. Clemson granted the release without issue, and Cal committed to play at Florida State, another baseball powerhouse within the ACC.
“They’re just such a loyal family, man,” Leggett said Wednesday. “When something happens to one of their very best friends, they’re gonna take up.”
In the grand scheme of things, a recruit leaving a school because the coach they committed to got fired isn’t revolutionary. It happens all the time, every year, in many college sports. But, given Raleigh’s current stardom, the missed connection between him and Clemson remains a compelling “what if?” scenario.
What if Clemson hadn’t fired Leggett? What if the Big Dumper had been smashing home runs at Doug Kingsmore Stadium from 2016-18 instead of in Tallahassee? What if it was Clemson, not Florida State, getting mentioned as Raleigh’s alma mater to the millions tuning into FOX’s MLB playoffs coverage this fall?
“Clemson baseball, we’d be getting such great publicity right now,” Leggett said. “But the AD had a different plan. So, unfortunately, Clemson didn’t reap the benefits of Cal Raleigh, which would have been an awesome, awesome experience.”
Leggett is Mariners’ No. 1 fan in Clemson, SC
When they talk, Leggett and Raleigh don’t dwell on what could have been at Clemson. Raleigh had a great experience and great career at FSU. Leggett, 71, is back with Clemson baseball working as a program development coach under Erik Bakich and says he’s found closure about his firing a decade ago.
But there’s plenty else to talk about. The Mariners are one of the best teams in baseball, Raleigh one of the sport’s most popular players. Leggett, who lives in Greenville, flew to Seattle earlier this month for two Mariners home games during their AL Divisional Series win against the Detroit Tigers, stayed with the Raleighs, sat with the family in the stands and caught up with Cal postgame.
“They love him out there, and rightfully so,” Leggett said. “He’s humble. He’s hard-working. He’s blue-collar. He’s everything that they’re looking for in a leader.”
Although he never played a game for Leggett at Clemson, Raleigh still calls his old family friend “Coach.” They text often; Raleigh, busy as he is, always finds time to respond. And baseball’s best catcher keeps the number 220 stitched in his mitt as a reminder — courtesy of Leggett — to keep playing twice as hard as everyone else.
So far, it’s been paying off.
“I’m a Seattle Mariners fan because of Cal,” Leggett said. “Simple as that.”
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 9:00 AM.
