2025 A Look Back: Hometown MVP award: Cal Raleigh

People from these mountains have gone on to do some pretty great things, but it’s hard to imagine someone in quite a while who’s been a point of pride like Cal Raleigh.

Raleigh, an all-star catcher for the Seattle Mariners, was a star in both basketball and baseball at Smoky Mountain High School. He was even a bat boy at Western Carolina University, where his father played catcher and was inducted into the athletics hall of fame in November. 

Raleigh’s success makes former little league coach proud

 Watching Cal Raleigh win the final round of the T-Mobile Home Run Derby on TV last week was a special kind of thrill for Steve Wilson, who works in Purchasing, Shipping and Receiving for Southwestern Community College. 

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