SAN DIEGO — As Cincinnati Reds rookie Sal Stewart rounded second base Tuesday, jogging past seven-time All-Star Manny Machado after his first-inning home run at Petco Park, the 21-year old flexed his right arm and looked at Machado and then where an imaginary watch would be.
It was just Stewart’s second home run compared to the 365 that Machado has hammered over his 14-year career. If it had been any of the other 27 Reds during Cincinnati’s 4-2 win to pull that stunt, there might have been an issue.
Instead, Machado just shook his head and smiled.
“It’s just these young guys, you know what I’m saying? These young guys, this new generation, hitting ‘The Shedeur’ and stuff,” Machado said, referencing the formal name of the gesture.
Stewart’s celebration wasn’t taunting, it was actually an appreciation for Machado’s mentorship and friendship and the fulfillment of his promise of a Rolex watch when Stewart reached the big leagues, a gift he received a week after his big league debut during breakfast at Machado’s Coronado home.
Much of what happened Tuesday happened in a flash, much like Stewart’s rise from 2022 first-round pick to big league debut three years after graduating high school.
“I kind of blacked out,” Stewart said. “I’m telling you, I can’t remember what happened. I blacked out. It was a surreal moment. I’ll never forget that. Rounding third like that, I’ll never forget it.”
Neither will Machado.
“I think he watches a lot of Padre games, so for him to come here and hit one in front of me, it was pretty cool,” Machado said.
To understand how Machado influenced Stewart, you’d have to go back to 2010, when former Red Yonder Alonso first began working with Machado, then a third overall pick in that year’s draft.
Sal Stewart Sr., a school administrator in Miami, originally fell in love with basketball, despite immigrating from Cuba, where baseball runs supreme. True to his Cuban roots, however, the younger Stewart fell hard for baseball. It’s a good thing since his son’s dark mustache and head full of thick, unruly locks to go along with his 6-foot-1, 224-pound frame paints him as a throwback catcher from the 1970s rather than a sharpshooting lock-down guard.
A former player Sal Sr. coached knew Alonso’s family, one that would eventually include Machado, who is married to the former big leaguer’s sister. He helped arrange a meeting between Alonso and a pre-teenage Stewart during a Padres homestand.
“His dad was raving about him and I said to bring him in,” Alonso said. “But he was like 10 years old, he couldn’t do much. Sure, he had a nice swing for a 10-year old, so, it was like, ‘Keep working, kid, have fun. Enjoy the bubble gum and sunflower seeds.’ Like, what else can you say to a 10-year old?”
As incredible as it was to meet a real big leaguer from his hometown, it was the budding superstar Machado that Sal Jr. really wanted to meet. A trip to Baltimore was eventually planned, where Sal Jr. met with his favorite baseball player for the first time.
Sal Jr. heeded the advice given to him, continuing to work hard before enrolling at Westminster Christian School. As his stats kept accumulating, he committed to play baseball at Vanderbilt.
A young Sal Stewart Jr. pictured alongside Manny Machado. (Courtesy: Yonder Alonso)
At that point, he came back to Alonso, hoping to get trained by him and Machado. Alonso saw right away that Stewart had developed into a young man with genuine talent and the work ethic to match.
Soon enough, he went from training with Alonso’s hitting coach, to alongside Alonso, then Machado.
“It was just when Yonder thought I was mature enough to understand that I can’t slow him down and I have to be ready mentally and physically to be able to go out there and train,” Stewart said. “I had to know what the standard is and once Yonder felt I knew that standard, then he said I was ready.”
That training also included ditching an aluminum bat for wood.
“He could always hit,” Machado recalled. “From Day 1 that we saw him, he was obviously a young kid, but you could see his bat speed, how explosive he was off the bat — there was a different sound off the bat from a freshman.
“He was doing this all with a wood bat — this is a freshman, he was doing it with a wood bat, not a metal bat. We’d never allow him to use a metal bat in that batting cage. He’d use the wood bat and you could hear the sound off the bat instantly as a freshman. We already knew he had something in there.”
Throughout his training, Stewart ate up every bit of advice, every bit of teasing, every bit of wisdom the pair imparted.
Coming from the baseball-rich Miami area, Alonso and Machado could separate true talent from the one-offs, and Sal Jr. was no exception. By the time he was ready to graduate, he’d developed into one of the country’s best high school players, hitting .514 his senior year alone.
Although Sal Sr. was adamant that his son go to college to further his education in addition to chasing his baseball dreams, the Reds’ $2 million signing bonus for the eventual No. 32 pick was too good to pass up.
Following a brief stint in the Arizona Complex League after the 2022 draft, Sal Jr. once again began working with Machado in the offseason. This time, however, as a professional, something he’d continue to do including in the lead-up to 2025 spring training, where he’d received an invite to big-league camp.
After a 7-for-24 stretch in which he didn’t make the Opening Day roster, he was assigned to Double-A Chattanooga. Still, in that brief period he’d made an impression on the big-league staff.
“He’s a very advanced hitter,” manager Terry Francona said at the time. “I don’t know when it is but he’s gonna be a good major league hitter. I firmly believe that.”
In 80 games with Chattanooga, he hit .306/.377/.473 with 10 home runs and 19 doubles before being selected for the Futures Game in Atlanta.
“I’ve always thought he could hit at the big-league level long ago, years ago,” Machado said. “The numbers he’s put up in the minor leagues — I didn’t put up numbers like that. The most impressive thing to me is the walks. His walks, his eye. You can’t teach that.”
One of Sal Stewart’s best friends, Manny Machado, recorded a video congratulating Sal on his call up ❤️ pic.twitter.com/SDTWO6EcCq
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) September 2, 2025
After a final promotion to Triple-A Louisville, Stewart was called up to the majors when rosters expanded in September, quickly finding himself in the midst of a playoff push.
The two people who knew about the call up before Stewart? Alonso and Machado. A Louisville Bats staffer let Machado know the call was coming on the last day of August so that he could make a video congratulating him.
Two weeks ago Sunday, Machado called Stewart in the morning, just, he said, to check in. In fact, both he and Alonso, who were communicating that day, were bursting with anticipation to congratulate Stewart. It was when Stewart got to the ballpark in Louisville that he was informed he’d made the big leagues.
Pat Kelly, Louisville’s manager, then told him there was another surprise waiting for him outside.
When Stewart walked out onto the field of Louisville Slugger Stadium, he looked to the scoreboard in left field and saw a video Machado had made that morning.
“See you next week in San Diego,” Machado said in the video. “Welcome to the show, kid.”
(Top photo: Gregory Bull / Associated Press)