Mariners' Cal Raleigh makes his final piece of history, topping Ken Griffey Jr. on Seattle record board

Billy Heyen

Mariners' Cal Raleigh makes his final piece of history, topping Ken Griffey Jr. on Seattle record board image

He did it.

Caleb John Raleigh, known as Cal or even the Big Dumper, really did it.

The Seattle Mariners' superstar catcher surpassed a Ken Griffey Jr. record that no one would've ever thought a switch-hitting catcher would break.

Griffey held the Mariners' franchise record for home runs in a single season, at 56.

But as of Saturday night, Raleigh has 57.

There's nothing cheap about that one, either.

From the right side, an opposite field laser, off Astros star lefty Framber Valdez. That's crushed.

Raleigh had already broken pretty much every record he could break. 

There was the single-season catcher mark of 48 held by Salvador Perez, and the single-season switch-hitter mark of 54, held by Mickey Mantle. Both checked off the list.

And now this, Mariners legend status forever.

Raleigh could conceptually get hot over the last week and still surpass Aaron Judge's American League record of 62.

But Raleigh doesn't need that record. He's already put his name all over the record books.

At this point, it's about getting the Mariners to the playoffs and about cementing Raleigh's season as the stuff of legend that doesn't even need history books to recall.

It'll certainly be a long time before anyone in Seattle forgets this campaign from Raleigh.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle