PEORIA, Ariz. — As large raindrops fell somewhere between a downpour and deluge, soaking the Phoenix valley, the early morning blackness somehow seemed darker in contrast to the handful of streetlights in the largely empty parking lot of the Mariners' spring training complex.
A few minutes after 5 a.m., the headlights of a pickup truck become visible. A large white GMC with jet-black rims pulls into one of the many vacant spots nearest to the buildings.
With the hood of his sweatshirt pulled over his cap, Cal Raleigh, the man who hit the franchise's most memorable home run in the past 20 years to end the longest postseason drought in major men's professional sports in North America, emerges. He unloads his 6-foot-3, 240-pound frame, including a backside that spawned the nickname "Big Dumper," out of the truck and quickly walks through the now-heavy rain into the sparsely populated complex.
