“A child who cannot legally buy alcohol and cannot get a driver’s license is playing professional baseball.”

A 16-year-old boy threw a challenge to the major league, where only baseball monsters gather.

Ethan Salas (16, San Diego Padres), a catcher from Venezuela, replaced the Chicago White Sox in the 6th inning against the Chicago White Sox in the 2023 Major League Baseball Exhibition held at Peoria Stadium in Peoria, Arizona, USA on the 12th (Korean time).

Salas took to the pitch to applause from the crowd. Even at the young age of 16, he competed against the best players in the world. Due to the nature of the exhibition game, it was just practice for the new season, but it ran all over the field like a real game. In the bottom of the sixth, he got his first at-bat, hit a ground ball to second base, and sprinted to first base, concluding the first exhibition game of his career.

Ahead of the 2023 season, Salas joined San Diego on an amateur international contract. Looking at international players who entered the major leagues around the same time, there are Shim Jun-seok (19, Pittsburgh Pirates), who graduated from Deoksu High School, and Eom Hyung-chan (19, Kansas City Royals), who graduated from Gyeonggi Commercial High School. As much as it was not long after his joining, he made his club debut right away.

From the moment Salas joined the club,스포츠토토 his potential was highly regarded, topping the list of top 50 international prospects. The club gave Salas a whopping 5.6 million dollars (about 7.4 billion won) as a super talent. This is a new record for the highest amount after the international contract bonus pool was changed to a ‘hard cap’.

As much anticipation proves, starting at the age of 16, he participated in an exhibition game in the major leagues and announced the beginning of the birth of a star. ‘CBS Sports’ reporter Danny Vietti, who watched this, was surprised to say, “A child who cannot legally buy alcohol or get a driver’s license is playing professional baseball.”

After the game, in an interview with MLB.com, the official homepage of Major League Baseball, Salas revealed his impressions of debuting in the exhibition game. “I tried to take [his debut] like any other game. I felt pretty comfortable and I was happy to play,” he said.

San Diego manager Bob Melvin also paid attention to Salas’ debut. “I’ll tell the 16-year-old standing behind the plate (catcher Salas), ‘You’re way past your age.’ It’s pretty amazing to see someone,” he said with a thumbs up.

Salas isn’t going to play at the top level of the major or minor leagues right away. Considering his young age and rich potential, he plans to grow step by step from under him.

Salas said, “Age is just a number. I’ve been preparing for this (playing). I think it went pretty well. (Today) is just another game for me.”

Although only 16 years old, he has shown potential as a super talent. There’s plenty of reason to wait and see how much better he’ll become.