Brusdar Graterol, a right-handed reliever for the Los Angeles Dodgers, will always remember the day he saw his teammate Max Muncy sprinting straight toward one of the greatest moments of his life.
Muncy was not attempting to beat out an infield single. And Graterol was not standing on the mound or in the Dodgers’ bullpen.
It was April 24, and the moment came in Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The rest of the Dodgers were in Pittsburgh. Graterol stepped out of the bathroom, saw a man dashing down the hallway, and said to himself, “Oh my God, that’s Muncy over there! He’s going to have the baby right now!”
Graterol was well aware of what was happening because he and his wife, Allison, were quite busy in their own hospital room, also on the second floor of Cedars-Sinai, following the birth of their own daughter, Aria.
That two Dodgers teammates were on paternal leave at the same time and would welcome newborns into the world on the same day was coincidental enough. But how about five Dodgers — Graterol, Muncy, Mookie Betts, Caleb Ferguson and Evan Phillips — becoming new fathers during a one-month span this season between April 20 and May 9? And then a sixth, Yency Almonte, in early July?
In the amalgam of sabermetric acronyms, the 2023 Dodgers are excelling…
