ATLANTA — The video went viral last week, featuring an 8-year-old Cal Raleigh forecasting what would eventually take place on Monday night. Recorded 20 years ago, on a handheld camera because smart phones did not yet exist, Raleigh offered a premonition that now carries a sense of surreal.

“I’m the Home Run Derby champ!” the Mariners catcher said in that 20-second clip from way back when, which spread like wildfire within the Mariners’ clubhouse, across social media, to national broadcasts and more leading up to the sport’s premier power-hitting event.

And indeed, 20 years later, the Mariners catcher is the champ.

Edging through the first round by — quite literally — less than one inch, Raleigh comfortably cruised past the early star of the night in Oneil Cruz through the second round, then put a bow on his big night by outlasting Junior Caminero, who made a late run but ran out of the allotted 27 pitches before the bonus period, where he fell short.

Monday’s win for the North Carolina native Raleigh also marked a fitting culmination for the MLB’s top power hitter in 2025, who reached the All-Star break with more homers (38) than all but one hitter in the sport’s history (39 from Barry Bonds in 2001).

Raleigh finished the night with 17 homers in the pool round (which set him up as the No. 4 seed of the four remaining), 19 in the second round (over Cruz’s 13) and 18 in the finals (over Caminero’s 15).

The switch-hitting slugger also peppered swings from both sides of the plate but only in his opening act. And switching over actually nearly cost him mightily, as he didn’t quite carry over the momentum while batting right-handed and finished in a tie with A’s slugger Brent Rooker.

And the tiebreaker was arguably the most dramatic moment of the night. At that point, the player’s longest homer of the round was the separator.

Raleigh’s was 470.61 feet, while Rooker’s was 470.53 feet — a decimal-point separation that allowed “Big Dumper” to breathe a big sigh of relief. Had the tie taken place in the semifinals (second round) or finals (third), the two would’ve taken part in a “swing-off” featuring three successive swings until a winner was determined, but swing-offs are not part of the first round.

“Brent’s probably going to hate me for that,” Raleigh joked on the ESPN telecast.

Yet for Raleigh, while winning would’ve been great, taking part in his first career Derby was more about relishing the moment with his father, Todd, pitching to him, and his 15-year-old brother, Todd Jr., behind the plate.

“Obviously, it doesn’t really matter how it turns out,” Raleigh said earlier on Monday afternoon. “But it’ll be just a great day in general.”

Raleigh joined Ken Griffey Jr., whose three Derby wins remain the most all-time, as the only victors of this event in Mariners history. He’s also the first catcher and switch-hitter in history to win.