LOS ANGELES — As tens of thousands of fans at Dodger Stadium stood up to applaud and chant his name after a game of their lives, Brusdar Graterol didn’t smile in victory. He knelt, buried his face in his glove, and silently looked up at the stands as if waiting for someone… But that empty space would never be filled.
Not because of pain. Not because of defeat. But because the only person he ever wished was there, didn’t make it that day.
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A childhood without a father, growing up with a promise
Graterol was born in 1998 in Calabozo, Venezuela – a poor rural area where the sound of a baseball bat hitting a tin can was the only joy for children. His father left when he was three, leaving behind a struggling nurse mother who raised her son on the blind belief that Brusdar was born to pitch in America.
“My mother always said, ‘When you get there, scream so I can hear you,’” Graterol once said in an interview.
He grew up practicing his pitches with coconut shells and a homemade bat. In 2014, at age 16, Graterol was signed to a professional contract. And then, overcoming a Tommy John injury, the pandemic, and a lot of homesickness, he reached MLB in 2019, becoming one of the most formidable bullpens for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“If I don’t make it, I’ll still hear you”
In the fall of 2020, just days before the Dodgers entered the World Series, Graterol received news that his mother — Belen — had been hospitalized with internal complications.
He called right away. “Mom still smiled. She said, ‘You have to throw like you’ve never thrown before.’ I asked, ‘Can you wait for me?’ … and she was silent.”
Graterol couldn’t fly back during the pandemic. And after the final, when the team lifted the championship trophy, he just stood silently on the sidelines, his eyes red.
A letter from someone who didn’t get to see it
When he flew back to Venezuela after the season, the doctor who treated him handed him a small piece of paper. It was a letter his mother left behind, written in her last days of consciousness:
“My Brusdar,
If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t get to see you play. But it’s okay.
Every time you step onto the field, I’ll be in the applause. When you’re tired, look up to the sky. Because that’s where I’ll be shouting your name, like the day you were born.
Love you.
Mom.”
From then on, every game was a response
Graterol folded the letter, put it in a small pocket, and sewed it to the inside of his pitching jersey. “I never played without it,” he said.
In 2025, as the Dodgers entered the playoffs, Graterol made a classic save, throwing a three-pitch strikeout against the Atlanta Braves. But instead of celebrating, he put his hand to his chest, bowed his head, and looked up at the stands.
“Can you hear me, Mom? I’m screaming. Just like you said…”
A pitch, a letter, and a love that never died
In an era of increasingly commercial baseball, Brusdar Graterol’s story reminds fans that beneath the helmet and the 100-mph fastballs, there is a heart that has been broken—but still throws, still loves, still remembers.
Not for the title.
Not for the money.
But to keep a promise to a deceased mother who believed her son would scream his heart out across America.
And today, the world heard him.