Years before he became a frontrunner for the American League’s Rookie of the Year award, before “Welcome to the JRod Show” banners and shirts took over Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, Julio Rodríguez terrorized his neighbors.

Not intentionally, of course. But as an adolescent growing up in a small northwestern town in the Dominican Republic, he didn’t always understand his burgeoning power. Then one day an older gentleman stepped out into the daylight during an afternoon hitting session.

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Rodríguez had been pelting baseballs over the fences at his local ballpark in Loma De Cabrera, a fairly large field with dimensions of roughly 315 feet to left, 360 feet to center and 325 feet to right. The balls often landed on the zinc-topped roofs of homes just beyond the outfield. The man had grown sick of the noise. He emerged from his house in a huff.

A moment later, a ball came screaming over the wall. It hit him in the back.

Rodríguez and his father, Julio Sr., didn’t know the man had been struck until a commotion ensued and a few kids dashed into the ballpark to alert them. Julio Sr. remembers his son panicking and himself thinking, “I hope it’s not bad or we’re screwed.”

The man wasn’t seriously injured, but his sister berated the Rodríguezes. Father and son made a pact then: Rodríguez would only hit the ball down during practice from that point forward. Julio Sr.would aim for the outer edge of the plate, so Rodríguez could only hit the ball the other way.

The man, who has since passed away, had no idea that the teenager would blossom into a young phenom and, as the Mariners’ centerfielder, help push a dormant franchise to its first playoff run in two decades.

But Rodríguez’s father already had a feeling his son was destined for greatness. Now, after watching him assemble one of the best rookie seasons in Major League Baseball in years, everyone can see it.

“He’s the king of Seattle right now,” said Mariners teammate Luis Castillo.

In July, Rodríguez introduced himself to the rest of the baseball world at the Home Run Derby. Despite losing to fellow countryman Juan Soto, Rodríguez stole the show. He mashed 81 home runs, the second-most in the history of the competition that started in 1985.

“In baseball at large, he’s very quickly become a very recognizable face,” said Jerry Dipoto, the Mariners president of baseball operations.

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The Mariners think so highly of the 21-year-old that they signed him in late August to a deal that will earn him $210 million over 12 seasons, with a handful of player and club options that could max out the contract at a record $470 million.

“Hopefully it ensures Julio spends the rest of his career in Seattle,” Dipoto said.

That’s how special the Mariners believe Rodríguez is — and can still be.

“I can’t say enough about how easy it was for us to fall in love with Julio,” Dipoto said. “It happened immediately.”

Rodríguez’s father says he often wonders, “Was my son really meant to accomplish so much?” But whether or not Rodríguez was predestined to rise to stardom early in life, Julio Sr. made certain his son would at least have a chance.

There was something auspicious about the way Rodríguez held a bat for the first time. He took it into his 2-year-old hands and placed them precisely on the handle, dominant hand on top, left hand underneath.

“Normally, a child at that age will hold the bat with his arms crossed,” Julio Sr. said in Spanish. “But not Julio. He held the bat like he had experience with it. When I threw him the ball, I saw him swing like he was a ballplayer born with ability. I thought to myself, ‘Man, this kid is weird, like, he’s different from most kids.’”

Rodríguez always had a natural instinct for swinging the bat, a gift his father wanted to protect. Whenever instructors approached with advice for his growing child, he’d insist that his son listen only to things unrelated to hitting. If he couldn’t bring himself to deliver the message directly, for fear of disrespecting well-meaning coaches, he’d go over to his son and discreetly remind him, “Don’t pay attention to anything they tell you. Hit the way that you hit.”

Julio Sr.’s confidence in his son’s ability didn’t require outside validation. But he got it anyway when a 12-year-old Rodríguez was in a youth tournament featuring teams from Loma de Cabrera, Santiago and La Vega. The games were meant as a showcase for amateur trainers to see players — mostly aged 15-17 years old — who were nearly eligible or already free to sign contracts with major-league teams.

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Then there was Rodríguez, still weeks away from turning 13.

For a couple years before that tournament, Julio Sr. had grappled with the idea of his son playing against older competition. He worried his son would struggle to catch up to their mature velocity — or worse, that a kid with a live arm but little command would strike Rodríguez and hurt him.

But even at 10, when he first started competing in his local league against players three to four years older than him, Rodríguez insisted his father stand down. “Papi,” he would say, “leave it. It doesn’t matter.”

The more Rodríguez played, it became clear that his father’s worry was for naught. At the time of the 2013 tournament, Rodríguez had already hit his first official home run. His father, a former catcher who played softball for much of his life, didn’t hit his first home run at their local ballpark until he was almost 22. Rodríguez did it at 12.

Rodríguez didn’t stand out during the first day of the tournament. No amateur trainer approached Julio Sr. offering to take his son away from home and develop him into a prospect at his own academy. But on the second day, Rodríguez stepped into the box to face a hard-throwing 17-year-old and smashed a pitch to deep center. The ball was caught at the wall, but scouts came away impressed with that swing.

Four years later, Rodríguez would go from well-kept secret to jewel of the Mariners’ 2017 international signing class.

Mariners director of player development Andy McKay first met Rodríguez in 2018. Rodríguez, 17 at the time, had signed a $1.75 million contract, the third-lowest among the reported bonuses given to the top 10 prospects in his signing class. He had yet to debut in the Dominican Summer League, in which he would eventually bat .315 and post a .404 on-base percentage.

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McKay dropped by a classroom at the team’s international facility in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic. Players were engaged in an educational exercise. Rodríguez stood out right away.

“It was his personality,” McKay said. “He was so engaging. I’ve said this so many times to so many people that it feels like a cliché, but he was just so full of joy. He has so much fun in whatever he’s doing … in the classroom, on the field or in a conversation.”

McKay still remembers his first conversation with Rodríguez.

“He walks up to me, and my guess is he knew who I was, my title or my role, and he shook my hand,” McKay said. “The conversation quickly turned. He asked me what he needed to do to play in the Arizona Fall League.”

The Arizona Fall League is a post-season destination for baseball’s top prospects, many of whom are nearing the end of their time in the minor leagues. Rodríguez had only recently turned 17 and had yet to play a professional inning. That didn’t matter to him, though.

“I was not prepared,” McKay said. “In a Double-A clubhouse, you’ll get guys who will ask that, but not here. I told him that was not how it worked. And he responded with something like, ‘tell me what I would have to do.’ And he did it in the most endearing way.”

Rodríguez didn’t make it to the Arizona Fall League that year — but he did the following year, and hit .289 as an 18-year-old.

McKay’s favorite Rodríguez story, though, has nothing to do with on-field accomplishments.

After tearing up the DSL in 2018, Rodríguez began 2019 at Low-A West Virginia. In his ninth game, Rodríguez was hit in the left hand with a pitch, resulting in a hairline fracture. The injury cost him two months.

That June, shortly after Rodríguez returned to the West Virginia lineup, he sat with McKay at the ballpark in Charleston, S.C., to watch the South Atlantic League All-Star Game.

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But Rodríguez didn’t simply watch the game. He immersed himself in it, and in supporting his West Virginia teammates, filming them on his phone and cheering for them.

“The pure joy of watching his teammates play … He couldn’t have been happier,” McKay said. “That stuck with me. And I’ve seen that at every level.”

In late September, while on the Mariners’ injured list with a lower back strain, Rodríguez was again in the dugout at T-Mobile Park cheering and supporting his teammates. Their success was his success.

“He loves the game. He loves the people, and he understands having fun. That’s kind of his fuel. And he hasn’t let anyone take it away from him,” McKay said.

The first month of Rodríguez’s major-league career could have taken that love from him. He struggled, and umpires’ proclivity for calling third strikes on the rookie on pitches outside the zone didn’t help. Rodríguez batted .206 in April with 30 strikeouts in 81 plate appearances. He was called out on strikes on pitches outside the strike zone 10 times — five more times than any other hitter.

The Mariners were pissed. Rodríguez seemed to take it in stride.

Julio Sr. watched only some of those strikeouts in person. He had been with the Mariners at the start of the season but he ended his trip a week early, worried that the presence of family would further complicate Rodríguez’s adjustment to a new league and workload.

During the frustrating period, Julio Sr. texted his son with concern about a demotion to Triple A. Rodríguez tried to disarm him. “Don’t you believe in me?” he would text back. “No one is going to send me down.”

Rodríguez exuded a similar calm at the plate. He didn’t lose his cool or his joy. He retained his identity as a hitter. He didn’t change himself by expanding the strike zone. He didn’t try to be someone he wasn’t.

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“I give all the credit in the world to Julio,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said in April. “Not many people can handle things the way he has. He’s not barked back (to the umpire) … he’s not changed his approach and is not chasing balls out of the strike zone.”

The results would come, Rodríguez insisted.

“I know the strike zone,” he said. “I know where I can do damage. I’m going to stay true to myself.”

Eventually, opposing pitchers realized Rodríguez wasn’t going to bite on pitches outside the strike zone, so they had to come inside. That’s when Rodríguez took off.

Rodríguez batted .309 in May with six home runs and 17 RBIs, essentially affirming the Mariners’ prediction that he’d be an impact player. And his performance improved from there. Entering the final days of the season, Rodríguez was batting .284/.345/.506 with 27 home runs. Despite his rough start, he led all rookies with more than 250 plate appearances in the productivity metric Weighted Runs Created-plus (144) and ranked second in FanGraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement (5).

“Like I always say,” said Seattle teammate Eugenio Suárez, “everything Julio is doing is special.”

On a sticky night in Tulsa, Okla., last June, Rodríguez made his Double-A debut for Arkansas. In the third inning, he hit a two-hopper to Drillers third baseman Miguel Vargas.

It was a routine ground ball. No crazy spin and nothing to take Vargas off his path from getting to the ball. Vargas set his feet and fired the ball to first base. What happened next stunned Travelers’ radio broadcaster Steven Davis.

“Julio is through the bag before the throw even gets there,” Davis said. “I was like, ‘Did he really do that?'”

“I didn’t think he was that fast,” Vargas said. “He’s a terrific talent.”

A lot of the talk about Rodríguez is how special his bat is. He hit .362 in 46 games last summer in the Texas League as a 20-year-old. But that’s not what made the biggest impression on Arkansas manager Collin Cowgill.

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“What stuck out most was his speed,” Cowgill said. “I coached third base last year, and I would giggle to myself when he hit a grounder … he’s going to beat that one out.”

Rodríguez, because of his size, was once pegged as a future corner outfielder. Who would figure that someone 6-foot-3 and 225 pounds (now 6-4) could glide around center field?

Rodríguez did.

“I would try to explain to people in Little Rock that this guy is an SEC linebacker out there, 6-3, 225 pounds and can run as fast as anyone,” Davis said. “I had one fan come back to me and say he was as fast as Mike Trout when he played here (in 2011).”

This past winter, Rodríguez worked on his speed and quickness with former NFL wide receiver Yo Murphy, who trains athletes at House of Athletes, a performance facility in Tampa.

After Rodríguez returned home from his time there, and right before spring training, Julio Sr. wondered if the work would really make a difference. Rodríguez had shaved significant time off his shuttle runs, but had he really done enough to take a major-league job in center?

“Man, you’re crazy,” Julio Sr. told him. Rodríguez responded, “I’m going to be a center fielder, dad. I’m telling you. I’m going to work for that.”

The new and improved Rodríguez blew the Mariners away this spring with his speed. His body looked different. He was leaner and when the team put players through initial tests, his speed improved by a full grade and a half on their internal metrics.

That speed has shown up often this summer. In August, Rodríguez became the quickest player in American League history to have a 20/20 season, and the second-fastest in big-league history.

“He’s now a five-tool player,” Dipoto said.

When he was 10, Rodríguez had far fewer tools. Coaches in his youth league told his father, “Julio doesn’t know a thing about how to hold a glove.”

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Julio Sr. took the feedback hard, and took it upon himself to teach Rodríguez the basics. A long living room in Julio Sr.’s old house became the site of crash courses in defense. Nights after work, Julio Sr. would ask Rodríguez to grab a glove and position him across the room to play catch. Eventually, he started to teach Rodríguez how to be a backstop, the position Julio Sr. played for his softball team.

They also spent three or four hours at the local ballpark every evening running, playing catch and hitting. As he grew older, they focused more on catching drills and strengthening his lower half.

Most Dominican baseball players interested in pro careers leave home by the time they’re 12 to work under amateur trainers in programs, or academies, where trainers — for a percentage of their signing bonuses — develop, house and feed prospects until they’re eligible to sign at 16. Rodríguez’s parents had decided their son would go to a trainer after he turned 14 and had completed a bulk of his secondary education, not before. Julio Sr. worked for years with Save the Children of the Dominican Republic to defend and promote the rights of minors, so he was hesitant to allow Rodríguez to enter an ecosystem that is often corrupted by bad actors.

Developing a prospect was challenging. Julio Sr. left his job an hour early every day so he could get home by 4:30 p.m. and take Rodríguez to their local ballpark. It was the only way he could ensure his son, who played in a league under a local trainer, would get in good work at the field.

“Julio was in a delicate situation as a ballplayer,” Julio Sr. said. “I had to sacrifice my job to be able to dedicate time to him. I missed time at work. For me that was very difficult because I’m not one to flout my duties. So I put my job at risk to work with him. It was like a puzzle.”

Julio Sr. handed over control of his son’s training a couple of months before Rodríguez turned 14.

By then, Rodríguez had become tough to ignore. And fending off the trainers recruiting Rodríguez had become something of an Olympic sport for Julio Sr.

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Rodríguez was invited by Juan Francisco Peña, the man who’d eventually become his trainer, to an event hosted by the Dominican Prospect League shortly after the showcase event in his hometown. Julio Sr. hadn’t known about the DPL, a highly regarded showcase circuit that works with trainers from across the country to provide more scouting opportunities to amateur players and better evaluation conditions for teams. But he felt compelled to drive his son several hours away after he learned one of Rodríguez’s eventual agents would be in attendance.

Swinging a borrowed wood bat, Rodríguez captured everyone’s attention as he clobbered baseballs.

“There were players who were older and bigger who were able to hit the ball out of the park,” Julio Sr. said. “But when Julio comes up, he’s able to hit balls much farther — as a kid. And everyone started to wonder, who is this kid and where does he come from?”

That was agent Ulises Cabrera’s introduction to Rodríguez, too.

“He shows up, and he’s one of 200 kids on a baseball field … they’re all 13, 14 and 15 years old. And he clearly stood out,” Cabrera said. “The Julio you guys see now is the Julio we saw back then. He’s more athletic now and has changed his body, but he’s the same kid.”

Cabrera, Peña and the Rodríguez clan entered into a partnership later that year, after Rodríguez’s parents ensured their son would continue working toward his high school diploma as a remote student. Rodríguez left home for MB Academy in Tamboril, a town within the city of Santiago, some three hours east of Loma de Cabrera, near the Dominican’s northwest border with Haiti.

Under Peña’s direction, Rodríguez blossomed. His skills as an outfielder — a position he picked up after his father was advised that Rodríguez’s road to becoming a major-league catcher would be much tougher — sharpened. As a major-league rookie, he would rank 12th among all MLB outfielders in arm strength according to Statcast.

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But before he signed with the Mariners, he thrived in tryouts and DPL games, even ones for which he traveled hours on buses to attend.

“He would play in the second game, so he’d arrive and sit in the stands for the first game, watching the game, waiting his turn,” Cabrera said. “He would be locked in on every pitch. I think that’s part of the reason he’s been so successful: He’s always watching the game, he’s always looking for information.

“He’s always trying to pick someone’s brain … he’s just a data gatherer.”

Always watching. Always learning. Always trying to get better.

In the middle of a long video call with a reporter a couple of weeks ago, Rodríguez’s father paused to collect himself. He took a moment to train his camera on the framed collages filling the walls of his house, a two-story home across the street from the one in which he raised his son. There were photos of Rodríguez playing as an amateur; a studio shot of teenage Rodríguez in a DPL jersey, bat positioned over his left shoulder and light eyes glimmering above a wide smile; a selfie of him and Julio Sr. from the day Rodríguez played on his father’s softball team for the first time. There were even more unframed pictures upstairs, including some from Rodríguez’s time playing for the Dominican Republic baseball team in the Olympics last summer. He called the rooms a museum. Julio Sr. said that Fany, Rodríguez’s stepmom, likes to joke he won’t leave her space to decorate.

Julio Sr. showed another piece of history outside the front door — a creamy 1994 Honda Accord. The vehicle sat in the driveway, still in good enough condition to transport Julio Sr. around town. He estimated he has invested more money in the vehicle than it is worth, but parting with it has always felt like a non-starter.

“That’s the car I moved my kid around in,” he said. “I’m not going to sell that thing even when it starts to fall apart.”

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Julio Sr. always championed his son, but even he had to admit he sometimes couldn’t wrap his mind around the amount of confidence Rodríguez possessed.

Skepticism reigned in spring training when Rodríguez told Julio Sr. to book time off from work for the first weeks of April. He planned to make the Mariners’ opening-day roster. Julio Sr. suggested he wait until May, but Rodríguez warned his father to take his advice. “You’re going to be here at the beginning of the season,” Rodríguez said.

Making the roster wasn’t a given when Rodríguez arrived in Arizona for spring training. But when Servais and Dipoto saw the changes in his physique, how well he ran and how hard he impacted the ball during a few early workouts, it became quickly apparent that Rodríguez wasn’t being over-confident.

In his first at-bat of spring, Rodríguez hit a three-run home run. “I think he’s ready for the challenge on the big stage,” Dipoto said.

Julio Sr. took an early vacation after all. He traveled with family members, including Rodríguez’s mother, to Minneapolis for the season opener. Even after greeting him at the Mariners’ bus outside Target Field, he said, he struggled to comprehend the new reality enveloping them. Hugging Rodríguez, Julio Sr. began to cry.

Rodríguez covered his father’s head with his hands and leaned close.

“Papi, we worked for this,” Rodríguez said. “Didn’t we?”

 (Top image: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Tracy Proffitt / Four Seam Images via AP; Steph Chambers / Getty Images; Jasen Vinlove / USA Today; courtesy of the Rodríguez family)

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