Dylan Carlson making an impact in Cardinals’ lineup and St. Louis community
A student at Hickey Elementary School waited in line in the school’s library Monday afternoon to meet St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Dylan Carlson and get a new winter coat. As she neared Carlson, she was excited to tell him she’d gone to a Cardinals game this summer and yelled hello to him from the stands.
Carlson met her enthusiasm with his own. “Did I say hi back?”
“No,” she chirped merrily.
“Oh,” he said, grinning sheepishly behind a mask and dropping his shoulders. “My bad.”
That accidental summertime transgression was all Carlson had to slump his shoulders about as he, in partnership with UnitedHealthcare, donated 250 new winter coats and Cardinals-themed blankets to students of this neighborhood school with a sizable population of students experiencing homelessness.
Dr. Michael Baird, the school’s principal, said he and his staff had about a week to prepare for a visit that will make a material difference in the lives of students who have to brave the cold each winter morning to keep their educational plans on track.
“When the kids found out, they just couldn’t wait,” a grateful Baird said.
Carlson has spent most of the month since the end of the Cardinals’ season in St. Louis, winding down his home here and preparing to decamp home to the Sacramento, California, area for the holidays. On Monday evening, just five hours after his public service, Carlson learned he finished third in the National League’s 2021 Rookie of the Year voting with 22 points, Cincinnati’s Jonathan India, who finished first with 148 points, and Miami’s Trevor Rogers, who came in second with 86 points.
In his first full season in the big leagues, the switch-hitting Carlson posted a 117 OPS+, making him 17% better than a league average hitter. He chipped in 18 home runs and recorded 65 RBI, all while starting at all three outfield positions and making at least one start at every spot in the batting order except fourth and ninth.
His versatility and well-rounded skill set made him one of the most dependable pillars of the Cardinals lineup even as a 22-year-old who has plenty of room to grow. And in sharing a clubhouse with community pillars like Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright, each of whom has won the Roberto Clemente Award for public service, and Paul Goldschmidt, who was this year’s Cardinals nominee, Carlson has come into his career in an environment where community engagement matters.
‘You want to give back’
Even without that guidance, though, he saw the need himself.
“You see (the fans) giving their all for us,” Carlson said, “and you want to give back.”
And so on Monday, even as he was preparing to call in to the MLB Network’s broadcast of the award announcement for which he is a finalist, he was on the front lines of giving back, posted up at the front of an elementary school library sifting through piles of winter coats.
He worked the line of students as they tried things on, offering high fives and handshakes and asking nearly every child in turn for their favorite color. There was an early run on pink coats, and near the end of the event, red was running short. A helpful volunteer mentioned to the line of waiting children Carlson’s favorite color was blue — an unconfirmed rumor, to say the least — and that kicked off a run on the relatively plentiful stash of blue coats.
Providing for adopted community
As one group of kids thanked Carlson for coming and he thanked them in return, another group was lining up in the hallway outside the library to come in and get their gifts.
As they left, though, a teacher stood at the doorway, double checking fits and making sure every student left with the right size, perhaps with a little room to grow. Now and again, she would quietly take a coat from a student and trade it in for a different size from the pile.
Dylan Carlson might be a five tool baseball player, but evidently, perfectly sizing elementary school students for winter coats falls just outside the scope of those skills.
He’ll learn. He has time. And he has the intent to make sure he can provide for children in his adopted community as often as he can.
