"I used to be afraid of ordering pizza"- Mariners star Julio Rodriguez proudly shares his inspiring journey from zero English to full fluency

Julio Rodriguez is a rising star in the MLB. The Mariners CF made his professional debut in 2022 after having signed as an international free agent with the Mariners in 2017. Julio was just 16 years of age when he moved to America from the Dominican Republic to pursue a career in the big leagues.

Naturally, speaking English was hard for the two-time All-Star as his native language was Spanish. But over the past few years, Julio Rodriguez has learned to speak English with full fluency. In an interview with Bat Boys baseball on Sunday, he shed light on his inspiring journey of learning the new language. He said:

"I took a little bit of classes but I feel like the biggest thing that helped me to learn and memorize things was learning how to make sentences. Let's say sandwiches, if I didn't know what sandwiches were or sum like that.

"I would make a sentence with the word that I'm trying to learn and then I would learn that word and it's just kinda started putting things together and that's how we're having this interview right now."

Then Julio Rodriguez narrated a story about how he used to be reluctant to order food fearing that he would mispronounce the words. He recalled:

"There's a funny story.. I used to be afraid of ordering pizza. I would try my hardest to like you know fill out the address and things like that but like to call in and like not knowing who was going to be on the other side of the phone and anything like that.

"I would always be so afraid until one day I was in the hotel I was like man I actually want a pizza right now and like 'ok today's gonna be the day' and I called in and I did it."

Take a look at the video here:

Mariners CF Julio Rodriguez shared a positive post from spring training

J-Rod has hit the ground running with the Mariners at the Peoria Sports Complex in Arizona. The CF has already featured in nine spring league games and is continually finding rythym at the plate with gritty at-bats.

On Sunday, he shared some images from gameday against the Rockies on Instagram while penning down a positive note in the caption, which read in Spanish:

"Grateful to God for everything I been through. 🙇🏽 ♂️ "

Currently, Julio has .227 batting average, two HRs, five RBIs, and .916 OPS in 22 at-bats in the spring league.