Cody Bellinger has enjoyed his share of fame since winning the Rookie of the Year Award with the Dodgers in 2017.
As a confident ballplayer with a humble personality, Bellinger is able to appreciate the magnitude of events without allowing pressure to creep into his performance. However, there was one situation, off the field, when he found himself completely speechless, and that was when he met Kobe Bryant for the first time. Bellinger spoke on the Darren Woodson show earlier in the week and talked about the time he met Kobe Bryant for the first time.
“The coolest person I met was Kobe Bryant,” Bellinger said. “Met him in ’18 against Milwaukee in the playoffs, I was in the video room, he came in, he introduced himself. And I was literally speechless, like, I felt like I literally couldn’t get the words out. It was weird, man, I was like, I have never been starstruck, ever. And I saw Kobe and I was like ‘Whoa,’ this is crazy, man … Super nice guy, took a picture with him. And, you know, it wasn’t much, but just meeting him was absolutely ridiculous.”
Bryant tragically died in a helicopter crash in January, just one day after sending Bellinger a congratulatory message for winning the NL MVP.