A Flickering Star Revived, How Family Kept Raider Tello from Quitting the Game He Loves
And Is Now on His Way to Being Drafted to the MLB
AJ Reisetter
Iowa City – On a cold, windy April, the Iowa Hawkeye baseball team was hosting the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and looking to sweep the season series. Raider Tello ripped a base hit off the right field wall, and as he turned second base, you could see his pearly white teeth from up in the press box. He lept to his feet after successfully swiping third base for an RBI triple. He looked toward the Iowa dugout for their signature triple celebration of drawing circles with the palms of their hands like they were trying to clean off a dirty car with two rags.
After the game in the dugout, I saw that same smile when I asked him about his journey to Iowa, and I got the same smile from his dad when I met him a few weeks later on senior day.
Family is rooted in the culture of sports. It’s also why Raider Tello has found himself in the Midwest after spending his whole life on the East Coast and nearly quitting his dream.
El Monte
Raider Tello is from El Monte, California, a town with a population of just over 100,000. It is 20 minutes outside of Los Angeles and is considered “low to middle income.”
Competition coursed through his blood at an early age. Everything from chess to everyday activities was a competition, but baseball resonated most with Raider.
“[He] had to sleep with his baseball blanket, balls, and glove,” his father said, Jayson Tello. “When we signed him up [for baseball], he was only three at the time, so we had to lie about his age,” he said with a laugh.
Once Raider got older, Jayson decided to build a batting cage for Raider. With limited space, he was still able to build one between their apartment and the property line of a church with old poles from a canopy that he rebent and welded together.
“At six in the morning, before he left for school and drove off, I would have to be in that cage with him.”
Portland
After graduating high school in 2020, Raider received multiple offers to play college ball, but only one Division I offer: the University of Portland. Despite the best efforts from the different JUCO schools, Raider decided he wanted to play Division I baseball immediately.
But Raider didn’t play much, totaling four at-bats and one hit that season. He didn’t get his regular time at third, he wasn’t getting chances at the plate, and overall, he was not enjoying baseball his first year away from home.
Despite the limited playing time, his family would still drive from El Monte to Portland for as many homestands as possible to support their son. However, as COVID-19 became more prevalent throughout the season, there was a growing suspicion that the season would end early.
One weekend, Raider’s parents scheduled a trip to Portland to visit him. They knew he wouldn’t be playing, but they wanted to see him anyway. They had planned on surprising Raider, but when they got to their hotel in Portland, Raider called to say that the season was over and he needed help packing his stuff.
That Saturday, after Raider had returned to Portland, he, Jayson, and his mother, Vanessa, sat in a hotel room contemplating what to do. That year had been challenging for the Tellos, and the season being canceled was on their long list of challenges they faced that year.
“During that year of 2020, my mother was sick; she passed away,” Jayson said. “Raider was gone away from home, college, young kid…and it was a tough time.”
That’s when Raider decided that “[he didn’t] want to play baseball anymore.”
Jayson described it as “a gut punch.”
“We watched him play since he was four years old… as parents, you back up your kid on whatever they decide.”
Raider’s mother, Vanessa, burst into tears that night, thinking that Raider may never play baseball again.
Pasadena
A few weeks later, Raider was sitting around at home while Jayson continued his job as a construction worker during the pandemic. One day, Jayson suggested that Raider contact some of the JUCO colleges in the area that were interested in him before he went to Portland just to see what they would say.
“I still knew he had the love and the desire,” Jayson said. “He was just beat up. He was done being run through a meat grinder and promised something, but it didn’t happen.”
Pat McGee, head coach at Pasadena City College, was one of the coaches Raider had been in contact with before signing with Portland and was one of the first to whom Raider reached out.
McGee responded with a long text saying, “I would be excited to have you back on my team; I promise the way you play this out, we’ll get you back to a D1 school, and you’re going to get your opportunity.”
In 2020, many Division I baseball players were in similar situations as Raider. No baseball was being played, and scholarships were being cut. So, the alternative was to play a season of JUCO baseball.
“Everywhere you went, these teams were stacked,” Jayson said. “It was just full of D1 bounce backs, and there were pitchers throwing 90-95.”
But Raider dominated at Pasadena, breaking school records for most hits, RBIs, and doubles in a single season, and led the team to its first 28-win season since before 2000 (records do not go past that season, rumored to be 1951, since the last 28-win season).
“Coach Patrick McGee, I owe my whole baseball career to him,” Raider said. “He practically revitalized my baseball career.”
Raider immediately received several Divison I offers after the season, including one in his backyard at UC Santa Barbra, but his old youth baseball coach had a connection to Iowa and pointed him towards the Midwest.
Iowa
I didn’t know anything about [Raider] until Mando called me, “Iowa head coach Rick Heller said. “[Mando] said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a guy that’s definitely your kind of guy, and we want to get him in a good place.”
Mando Santa Anna was Raider’s youth baseball coach in El Monte, family friend of the Tellos, and played second base for Rick Heller at Upper Iowa when they went to the 1996 Division III World Series.
Mando also coached the El Monte Dukes, a rival to the Oakley Stingrays, the team Raider played on when he was nine years old.
“I would see him at the local training facility, and if you would see the way he put in his work at that age, it was kind of incredible,” Mando said. “He was ahead of his time as far as training goes.”
The two families grew close because of baseball, and Mando followed Raider’s journey. He knew that he could be something special with the right coaching.
Mando connected the Tellos with Rick Heller and associate head coach Marty Sutherland when other Division I school contacted Raider. Although they could never make it out to Iowa City, the met the coaches on Zoom to get a feel for the culture and where their son would play baseball.
After a few Zoom meetings with Iowa, Raider had shortened his list to two schools: UC Santa Barbara, just two hour away from home, and Iowa, 25 hours away.
“It was a no brainer,” Jayson said. “We were kind of afraid for him to go back out of state… [After] having such a tough time when he went to Portland.”
After officially touring the school and meeting the coaches, those worries were quickly swept away, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows just yet.
“The first couple of practices, I had an absolute noodle arm,” Tello said. “I had a torn lat, and everybody thought I was joking, and I just couldn’t throw the ball.”
“Yeah, we have him a lot of crap because that was our first time seeing him,” his teammate and now roommate Sam Peterson said. “I think it really resonated with him… because now he’s got one of the stronger arms on the team,” he chuckled.
Now in his second season with Iowa, he leads the team in almost every statistical category offensively and is on Big Ten leaderboards for batting average (7th) and doubles (3rd)
He has now positioned himself to accomplish his biggest dream of becoming a major-league baseball player. The season is far from over, but his family knows that the best parts of his life are still ahead, and they will be by his side for whatever comes next, no matter how far away he travels.
