Landmark · September 22, 2026
Yelich at 1,100 Runs
Fourteen seasons, two cities, and a mother who drove him every Wednesday night to USC.
1,100 career runs scored · MIL
The Wednesday Drives
For two years, Alecia Yelich drove her son every Wednesday night from their Southern California home to USC so he could play in Atlanta Braves scout-team games. She ferried him to tournaments and practices across the region, pressing one lesson: stay humble in a game built on failure. As a boy near Los Angeles, Christian started at Mike Scioscia's camps at age eight and decided he wanted to play pro ball. Before that, at seven, Little League pitchers kept hitting him and he told his mother he was done. She refused to let him quit and offered five dollars for a hit. He swung at the first pitch, dribbled a short fair ball, collected the money, and never feared pitches again.
Born in Thousand Oaks, the eldest of three brothers — Collin, a former minor-league player, and Cameron, a U.S. Marine — Yelich grew up in what his Westlake High coach Zach Miller called a disciplined athletic family that put academics first. Miller recalled a kid who stayed after practice to work on outfield skills and stayed even-keeled whether the team won or lost. That family now hosts an annual charity concert in Milwaukee benefiting military veterans and youth baseball, motivated partly by his brother's Marine service.
The Count
The Marlins drafted him 23rd overall in 2010 out of Westlake High School in Westlake Village, and he reached the majors in July 2013. Five seasons in Miami produced a Gold Glove in 2014 and a Silver Slugger in 2016. He won MVP in his first year with Milwaukee, 2018, along with a Hank Aaron Award, then repeated the Aaron Award and added another Silver Slugger in 2019.
On September 22, in his ninth season with the Brewers, Yelich scored his 1,100th career run. He has 1,842 hits, a .370 on-base percentage, and 244 home runs across 1,730 games and 14 seasons, split between two franchises. He is 34 years old and still in Milwaukee's lineup.
Reporting: The Players' Tribune, The Athletic, Palm Beach Post, MLB.com, Wikipedia. Career and biographical data: MLB StatsAPI, via the Fever engine.