JULIO RODRIGUEZ WAS barely 18, playing baseball in the United States for the first time, when he made his biggest impression on a Seattle Mariners franchise that now adores him.
It wasn't how he hit or how he fielded or how he ran -- it was how he watched.
Minor league spring training can be long and arduous, with early wake-up times and heavy conditioning before players even pick up a bat or a glove. Rodriguez got his first taste of it in 2019, less than two years after signing out of the Dominican Republic.