Cody Bellinger: Williamsport to the Bigs

making it to williamsport is really beating the odds i mean there's so many little leagues out there so many little league alsr teams so many rounds and layers you have to get through and i'm sure when you're a little kid it's an amazing experience to win all those games to get there and then to get all the exposure that you get when you make it i grew up in arizona hot but year-round baseball a lot of activity outside the little league fields i thought they were big you look back now and they're obviously the smallest field you can play on my name's clay bellinger i'm a firefighter in 2007 we had a club ball team we got together a bunch of kids and i was one of the coaches on the channel national all-star team that got to go to williamsport and play in the little league world series hi clay bellinger coach chandler arizona hi cody bellinger play first place my son cody was one of the players on that team playing in front of 20 to 30 thousand fans as an 11 year old 12 year old is pretty spectacular welcome to the chandler arizona team to the baseball tonight said cody bellinger is here our offense is really good and our defense you we don't make much here so if you get just a condensed version of what could be you know life in in the big leagues with all the cameras and the media your dad's right there on the field with you knowing that your dad knows what it takes to make it all the way to the real world series with people there on the field in williamsport for the little league world series with you that's got to be even more special clay bellinger a former major leaguer clay bellinger was a guy who who really had to scrap and fight for every day he had in the big leagues he was there certainly at the right time i mean he played for four teams and they all made the world series he played for the 99 2000 yankees these two championship teams i definitely remember the world series parades in new york city it's like what you envisioned there's so many people in downtown and they're throwing like confetti some 10 years into myers to three years in the world series is pretty unique you could say looking back on it the people in that clubhouse that i got to be around was pretty uh unbelievable i mean anytime you see your dad playing you know you want to do it and when you realize you're actually you know pretty good at it you know i think you just you fall in love with it little league it's about having fun you know love of the game that's all i would say have fun keep playing it was it was probably the most fun playing baseball he said we played really well you know we lost we would have loved to win two more games or three more games but to be top four in the u.s still a good time at the end of the day it doesn't really matter how you did you got there and that was the main goal but yeah i think for me it was a little less pressure knowing that he was there you see other players who've gone through that experience who made it big my dad played in the big leagues i've gone as far as i can in the little league world series it can drive you i think that was the moment for me where i was like i really want to do this i could probably try to do this and kind of turn the switch a little bit focus on it a little more [Music] i was tiny when i was younger i didn't hit my girl spurt until junior year high school some guys on my team were superstars and they stopped working and everyone kind of passed them for me just kind of focus on the little things and then obviously once you get a little bigger stronger it kind of takes over but i got drafted in 2013. he just kind of took off from there [Applause] cody bellinger is a rookie outfielder in first baseman for the la dodgers he came up to the big leagues in april and started tearing up you are ridiculous the kid goes deep again he's captured the imagination the attention of the whole baseball world this the guy who's going to hit 60 home runs and lead the dodgers to the world championship you know we haven't seen a full season from him yet so really anything's possible you see your son doing what they love to do and actually playing well and hopefully it'll last another 10 15 years cody used to be clay bellinger's son and now i'm cody bellinger's dad you

Channel: MLB

Views: 2,304,391

Rating: 4.9175186 out of 5

Keywords: Major League, Clay Bellinger, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Baseball, Little League, MLB, Cody Bellinger, MLB.com Presents, Prospect Productions, Williamsport, Little League World Series, Dodgers rookie, Rookie of the Year, slugger

Id: tXzolSJsJHg

Length: 4min 30sec (270 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2017