Dylan Crews didn’t even get to Nationals Park until after his scheduled 2:15 p.m. Monday media availability because of weather-related travel delays…but the 40 or so family members who also made it to DC for his MLB debut Monday night were getting there come Hell or literal high water.
“Since we found out about it, obviously a lot of planning and getting people here pretty quick; didn't really anticipate it happening now, but it did and we're glad it did, and we pulled it together,” George Crews, Dylan’s father, told Grant & Danny Monday afternoon. “We got in last night about eight o'clock, but didn't sleep much last night - unfortunately, it was Sunday and everything was shut down, so we made many trips to the front desk to load up on their bar that they had down there! It’s been a whirlwind, but glad to be here, and the city is buzzing right now. Obviously the Yankees are in town, but it's just really cool to see all this stuff, and glad to be here.”
Many expected Crews to make his MLB debut in 2024, and even his family had an idea it would – but not yet?
“Typically when they expand rosters, I was thinking if it happened, it was gonna be in September,” George said. “He was starting to get hot a little bit in Rochester, he's had a really good month, and this whole thing with him playing there, it was pretty cool and they had something good going on, so I just thought it would be September before they called him up.”
About a week early, but the culmination of something the elder Crews really started thinking about a decade ago, when Crews was playing Little League – in the same town that just took home this year’s trophy in Williamsport over the weekend.
“Dylan didn’t have an opportunity to play in the LLWS, but 12U is when you start to really play a lot of tournaments, and he started kind of separating himself at that time,” George said. “We built a batting cage at the house, put a pitching machine in, and I've probably thrown hundreds of thousands of pitches to him. Around 14 or 15 he started about 1415 years old, he started playing travel ball with a really elite travel team in Orlando, the Scorpions, and he played up, so he played with kids that were a year older than him, and more than held his own. So about his freshman, sophomore year when you realize that, you know, he started getting heavily recruited, and maybe he's got a chance to be a big leaguer, and here we are.”
And now, the hard part begins for him – and the best part begins for his family.
“This is the first night of his real job. He's got to go to work, he's got to perform, he's got to do his job and help the team win games,” George said. “For us to be here in this environment, with all these people out here and all the kids running around wanting his autograph, it’s pretty cool. As a player, he’s trained so hard to be well-rounded, a five-tool player. Defense has improved so much, and baserunning he has some improvement there, but he’s shown he can hit and run, and when someone tells you when they meet him that your son is a better person than he is a ballplayer, that means more than anything. That’s who he is – he doesn’t like the hoo-rah and all that.”