SEATTLE − Corbin Carroll bought a plane ticket and planned to spend this week at home in Seattle, staying with his parents and little sister, hanging out with childhood friends.
Well, those plans changed.
Oh, Carroll is still coming home. He traveled back on the same flight with his high-school baseball coach, who spent the past week with him in Phoenix.
But he’s not staying at his parents’ home, after all, and may have little time to visit everyone he wants.
He checked into a downtown Seattle hotel Sunday night near T-Mobile Park.
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The Arizona Diamondbacks rookie outfielder is there along with all of the other Major League Baseball All-Stars, and is the only All-Star who’ll be playing in his actual hometown.
“Can you please let everyone know he won’t be staying at the house,” says his mom, Pey-Lin Carroll. “I don’t want people having any idea about coming over to the house expecting to see him.”
Consider the public-service announcement done.
Those who know Corbin Carroll − and, really, who doesn’t among the 733,000 Seattle residents − plan to be at T-Mobile Park on Tuesday, cheering until their lungs burn and taking pictures until their fingers ache, celebrating their homegrown prodigy in this 93rd All-Star Game.
“I can’t begin to tell you how many people we know are planning to come to the game and celebrate with us,” Pey-Lin Carroll said, “but, oh, you’re going to hear them. There are going to be watch parties for Corbin all over town, too. Everyone feels part of this. So many people reached out telling us they voted for him, everyone thinks their vote pushed him over the top.
“People who have never watched baseball before now can now tell us everyone on the roster. We’re helping cultivate new fans in baseball. It’s a little surreal.”
Carroll, 22, who is the runaway favorite for the Jackie Robinson National League Rookie of the Year award − hitting .289 with 18 homers, 48 RBI, 26 stolen bases, .915 OPS − can hardly believe this is all happening so fast.
He was drafted with the 16th pick in the country in 2019. He couldn’t play in 2020 with COVID-19 shutting down the minor leagues. His 2021 season lasted one week when he underwent shoulder surgery. He made his major-league on Aug. 29, 2022. And in March he signed an eight-year, $111 million contract.
And here he is, not just making the All-Star team as a rookie, but voted to the National League’s starting lineup.
“It’s going to be such a cool moment,” Carroll told USA TODAY Sports, “especially for it to happen to me in Seattle, in the town I grew up playing in. I’m probably a bit oblivious to the context of what it all is, the rarity of starting an All-Star Game in your hometown. This has always been a dream, but it always seemed so far-fetched.
“I’ll be able to share it with so many more people now, high-school friends, teachers, my family, this amazing community and support system that helped me put me in this position. It just means a lot.”
Growing up a young Mariners fan
Carroll grew up going to Seattle Mariners games with his parents and sister, Campbell. His dad, Brant, an ophthalmologist, shared season-tickets with others in his practice for 20 years, and they would attend about 10 games a season. They would take a leisurely 30-minute walk from their Queen Anne neighborhood to the ballpark, or sometimes ride scooters, and watch Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Ichiro Suzuki, Felix Hernandez. He was born too late to see the magic of Griffey leading the Mariners to their prominence, and the 116-win season in 2001, but sat in the stands idolizing Suzuki and marveling over Hernandez’s dominance.
The only time Carroll got to see a Mariners’ playoff game was last year when he sat behind home plate, watching them lose 1-0, to the Houston Astros in the first round. He can’t remember any other memorable regular-season games he attended, but still teases his sister to this day about the time she went to the Mariners’ game on a fifth-grade field trip and saw Hernandez pitch a perfect game.
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“Only she didn’t even know what happened,” Carroll said. “I had to tell her when she got home. So, yeah, that’s a good one.”
The first Mariners memorabilia he ever owned was an Ichiro child-sized jersey. He brought it along with him when he met Ichiro with Mariners’ officials before the 2019 draft, got a picture taken holding the jersey with Ichiro, which is still a screensaver on Carroll’s phone.
He’ll offer apologies ahead of time, but if he gets the chance to meet Griffey or Hernandez during the All-Star festivities, he may act like a kid all over again.
“I can’t wait to meet the players I grew up watching,” says Carroll, who bought tickets for 20 friends and family members. “I think every kid tries to emulate the guys they look up to, their idols. There are so many great young players in the game right now, who are so exciting to watch, I look forward to meeting those guys, too, and seeing how they operate.”
Rise to stardom
Well, Carroll shouldn’t be taken aback, then, if others in the clubhouse grab a pen and baseball to get an autograph, too, while soaking up his knowledge, and secrets of his meteoric rise to stardom.
“It’s crazy, I was just sitting next to him here at the Futures Game a year ago,” said D-backs shortstop prospect Jordan Lawler, the team’s first-round pick in 2021. “And here is, coming home as ‘The Man.’ I couldn’t be happier for him.”
It was eight years ago when Kellen Sundin, 39, Carroll’s baseball coach at Lakeside School, first laid eyes on Carroll. He was just a skinny, frail kid with a big swing, but, oh, could he ever run. Sundin played him in right field the first two years before moving him to center field. He became team captain his junior year, and then drew the attention of every amateur scout in the country when he earned a spot on the national 18-and-under team with the likes of Anthony Volpe and Bobby Witt Jr.
“I remember his first game of his senior year, and all of the scouts had come to town to watch (future Orioles’ No. 1 pick) Adley Rutschman, with the (Oregon State) Beavers playing the (Washington) Huskies,” says Sundin. “Well, after watching Rutschman, they stayed over a day to watch us. There must have been 75 scouts in the stands.
“I asked our guys before the game, ‘How many of you are the most nervous you ever been?’ They all raised their hands.
“Including Corbin.”
Well, the scouts kept coming out to watch Carroll, and as he kept performing, it became awfully clear he wouldn’t be needing that college scholarship to UCLA. The D-backs pounced on Carroll four picks before the Mariners had a chance to draft him.
Carroll became only the second player in the history of his prestigious high school, which includes Microsoft co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen as alumni, to reach the big leagues. He joins John Leaovich, who had just two at-bats in the big leagues for the 1941 Philadelphia Athletics, but included a double off Hall of Famer Bob Feller.
High school coach: Carroll not blinded by success
Now, here is Sundin, sitting in Section 130, Row 33, Seat 1 at Chase Field on this past Thursday night, watching the D-backs play the New York Mets, and lowering his head in anguish. Carroll took a huge swing, dropped his bat, and walked off the field clutching his right arm, trying to stabilize his shoulder. He did the same thing on a swing six days earlier, but this looked horrifying.
Here he is, just five days before the All-Star Game, and now this?
“I pretty much thought that the season was over,” Carroll said. “I was pretty crushed walking off the field.”
Carroll immediately underwent tests to show the strength and stability was fine, had a sleepless night before heading to the doctor’s office Friday morning for an MRI. The the next thing he knew, doctors cleared him, he’s in the batting cage swinging, and back in the starting lineup as if nothing happened.
He produces two hits Friday in their 7-3 victory over the Pirates, gets a walk-off hit in their 3-2, 10-inning victory Saturday, and spent Sunday on the plane home ahead of Monday’s All-Star festivities. He’ll be riding along with his family for the red-carpet ceremony in downtown Seattle Tuesday morning, with the game that evening (8 p.m., ET, FOX-TV).
“Besides being the best player I ever had,” says Sundin, one of Carroll’s closest friends, “he’s just such an awesome guy. It’s just everything he does, on a baseball field, in life, everything.”
Carroll arranged to have his family and sister come down on his off-day last Monday in Anaheim celebrating Campbell’s birthday. He plans to be in Seattle as much as possible this winter to see her soccer games before she graduates and attends college at Cal-Berkeley. His best friend from high school, William DeForest, an intern in the D-backs analytics department, stays in his house along with teammate Dominic Fletcher. And don’t try reaching for your wallet when it comes to pay for a meal, particularly one that includes his favorite: sticky rice.
“That’s why everyone who knows Corbin is trying to find a way into that building for the All-Star Game,” Sundin said. “It’s not just for the player he is, but the person. He was always popular and well-liked. He always did the right thing. He doesn’t forget people, teachers, strength coaches. You name it, he remembers.
“He’s just a special human who was never blinded by the success.”
‘Dream come true’
Carroll was 11 months old the last time the All-Star Game was in Seattle. He has never seen an All-Star Game in person. Now, here he is as the hometown centerpiece.
“It definitely is a dream come true,” Pey-Lin Carroll said, “because we didn’t realize it would come so quickly. I remember when they announced it was coming, we thought, ‘Oh that’s too bad, I wish it was a couple of years later.’ You know, just being practical.
“We’re just kind of speechless how everything has aligned so nicely.”
Even though Carroll may not have the opportunity to address everyone, he wants to thank all of Seattle, letting them know they’re all part of this wonderous, glorious journey.
“To have this opportunity, in your own hometown,” Carroll says, “I’m not sure when it’s all going to hit me, but I know I’ll appreciate it.
“And, obviously, I will never, ever forget it.”
He may not be a Mariner, but the entire community of Seattle may feel quite the same.
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