On January 25th Darrius Baker posted a video to Instagram documenting his 7-year-old son Braylen’s development in baseball. The video has over 2 million views, and thousands of comments.

“It was very surprising to see,” Darrius said. “So many comments were praising how I’ve coached him. Austin Gomber, a pitcher for the Colorado Rockies even reached out to say he wants to get us tickets to a game when they come to Atlanta!”

Darrius was a track athlete growing up, and never played baseball. Once his son took an interest in the sport, he had to learn it himself.

Darrius’ inexperience in baseball will lead him to occasionally missing on swings while hitting balls to his son. Each time, Braylen makes sure to call out that it is “strike one.”

The duo practice together two to three times each week, and they always start with fielding.

“He likes hitting way more, but we obviously need to work on both skills,” Darrius said. “I like to start with fielding so that he gives his full effort there before we switch to hitting. It’s like making him eat his vegetables before he gets to eat his dessert.”

Braylen struggles with ground balls the most. Darrius emphasizes how he needs to keep his legs wide when getting down to field the ball. After the ball skipped past him on the last ground ball, he listened to his dad’s advice on this hit and fielded it perfectly.

Braylen’s favorite player is Ronald Acuña Jr., having memorized many of his stats from his 2023 MVP season. This running catch was reminiscent of some of the plays Acuña has made for the Atlanta Braves.

Braylen’s only injury playing baseball came when he was running to catch a fly ball and ran into the outfield wall.

“His face got really cut up when it happened,” Darrius said. “We had to make sure he holds his right arm out to protect him from running into the fence.”

Braylen excels for hitting at his age, as he led his league in multiple stats during the fall season. He said his favorite memory playing baseball was when he hit for the cycle last fall.

After scorching a ball into the outfield, Braylen points out a new dent in his bat. Thankfully, it is just the backup bat he uses for practice and not his more expensive one that he uses in games.

Braylen smashes a ground ball back up the middle, nearly hitting his dad and the photographer standing at second base.