USA TODAY International Edition
MLB/ soccer romances
Sports collide for Julio Rodriguez and Dansby Swanson with significant others
PEORIA, Ariz. – They are baseball superstars, the cornerstones of their teams, worth a combined $ 386 million.
Center fielder Julio Rodriguez is already the face of the Seattle Mariners after playing just one season, and shortstop Dansby Swanson is the face of the Chicago Cubs before playing his first game.
Well, while they may be celebrities, drawing autograph seekers wherever they step in public, they’ll tell you they’re not the real stars in their relationships.
Jordyn Huitema, 21, who won an Olympic gold medal with Canada in 2021 and plays for the NWSL’s OL Reign in Seattle, happens to be Rodriguez’s girlfriend, dating since November.
Mallory Swanson ( formerly Pugh), 24, the youngest American to score a goal in the Olympics, playing for the Chicago Red Stars, is the wife of Swanson, marrying in December.
So, when the Cubs and Mariners play each other this season, beginning with an April 10- 12 series at Wrigley Field in Chicago, you can be sure that Swanson and Rodriguez will have plenty to talk about besides baseball.
“It’s pretty cool,” Rodriguez tells USA TODAY Sports. “I would watch a lot of the World Cup because of my mom, but I definitely have a bigger reason to watch now. I love watching the games she plays and the strategy behind it.”
Swanson will sit back with his wife after games and scrimmages and break it down as if they’re in a film room, discussing what transpired.
“It’s funny because I like to watch and learn and understand what the strategy is about,” Swanson says. “She loves hearing my breakdowns after the game like, ‘ Oh, what did you like? What didn’t you like?’
“Whether I’m like even remotely right or not, it’s just cool to learn, and it’s fun watching with her because she just points out the littlest things.”
It’s all about teamwork, and unselfishness, Rodriguez and Swanson have quickly discovered. If you’ve got a selfish team, you’re going to be losing a lot of games.
Yep, just like baseball.
“I just feel like there’s so much teamwork involved, the way they’ve got to basically play together in order to make things happen,” Rodriguez says. “Everybody is connected on the field. I think that’s very cool, the teamwork, and how the whole environment works.
“She has such a great mentality, and so much knowledge. She is really a re
lentless girl, and such a big competitor.
“There are a lot of things I can learn from her, too.”
Who knew, Swanson says, that there’s a purpose behind virtually every move on the field, knowing that if one component breaks down, everything can collapse.
“I never knew why a person would run this way, and she’d tell that it was being unselfish,” Swanson says, “like they were running not to get to the ball, but to free somebody else up to get the ball. I’m like, ‘ OK, I never would have known that.’
“They say it’s all one piece, like freeflow basketball. If this person drives here, you need to pop out here, because you’re getting a pass. You know it’s so similar, in a way.”
It was soccer that brought Swanson and his wife together, the ol’ fashioned way. They met through a mutual friend in 2017. Cheyna Williams, who went to Vanderbilt with Swanson and later played on the Washington Spirit soccer team with Mallory, introduced the two at Swanson’s baseball game. Their relationship began a few months later.
“I was definitely way into her,” Swanson says, “more than she was to me.”
Rodriguez and Huitema met the modern- version way, through social media, and have been a couple since November.
“She was the one who reached out to me,” Rodriguez says. “We started talking. She came to our games. We started hanging out, and it went off from there.
“Before that, we basically had no clue who each of us were.”
Now, Huitema is a die- hard Mariners fan, and, of course, Mallory Swanson has shifted her allegiance to the Cubs.
The only question that begs to be answered in their relationships is simple: Who’s the best athlete?
“I don’t know if I’m ready to give that title up yet,” Swanson says, “but she could definitely outrun me in terms of distance. I could probably beat her in 100 yards, but anything longer, the legs starting to get a little tired, and I think she’s going to handle that one.”
Rodriguez says there is room for debate, but if he wants to be honest, well …
“She’s a great athlete, such a great athlete, that’s all I got to say,” Rodriguez says. “For her to go out there and run 90 minutes, and things like that, that’s impressive.
“I mean, really impressive.
“So, I’m going to give it to her.” Rodriguez still is waiting for the day he can see that gold medal Huitema won five years ago as their relationship grows.
Then again, maybe he’ll win one of his own, playing for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic this month, and they can trade jewelry?
“That would be crazy, right, both of us having a gold medal,” Rodriguez said. “I’m going to do everything I can to make that happen.”
Mallory Swanson won the gold in the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and Swanson responded by winning a World Series championship ring with Atlanta in 2021.
So here they are, four premier athletes in two sports and enough awards and medals between them to fill an entire house.
“It’s pretty freakin’ cool, isn’t it?” Swanson says.
Says Rodriguez: “You got that right.”