The media spent a year trying to explain away professional baseball player Junior Caminero's power.
Now Florida's Governor just buried that narrative cold.
And Ron DeSantis torched the media narrative on Junior Caminero with one tweet.
The Narrative They Tried to Build
When Caminero crushed 45 home runs in his 2025 breakout season, the takes came fast.
The Rays were playing at George M. Steinbrenner Field – a spring training park pressed into service as a temporary home.
Critics called it a bandbox.
https://twitter.com/RaysTheRoofTB/status/2096384643536764977?s=20
They called it a hitter's paradise.
They said Caminero's numbers were an illusion, a product of cozy dimensions and favorable conditions.
There was also an uglier undercurrent – the age fraud cloud that follows Dominican talent out of the Caribbean.
MLB has been fighting falsified documents for decades, with handlers faking birth certificates, school records, and medical files to shave years off a player's age and inflate signing bonuses.
Just weeks ago, MLB suspended a Dominican prospect after investigators uncovered a scheme involving a fake identity, a fraudulent death certificate, and a tombstone planted in a graveyard to sell the story.
Against that backdrop, some critics looked at Caminero's birthdate – July 5, 2003 – and raised an eyebrow.
DeSantis Said What Nobody in the Press Would
Governor Ron DeSantis watched Caminero break Ken Griffey Jr.'s record this summer and posted exactly what Rays fans were already thinking.
"Wait, I thought Junior only hit a lot of homers last year because of playing in a spring training stadium? Oh, yeah, another false narrative. Pretty darn good for a 23 year old!"
He wasn't just congratulating a ballplayer.
He was torching two narratives at once – the stadium excuse and the age whispers.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2096971379228672421?s=20
That's the kind of thing fans were saying in the stands and nobody in the sports press would put in print.
The Record That Shut Everyone Up
Caminero became the youngest player since 1900 to homer in six consecutive games, breaking a mark held by Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr., who accomplished the feat at 23 years and 246 days old.
Caminero did it at 22 years and 361 days.
He didn't do it in a bandbox.
He hit a two-run shot off Seth Lugo in Kansas City on July 1 – on the first pitch he saw, three batters into the game.
The kid went 14-for-31 with nine home runs in eight games during the streak.
His bat speed ranks in the 100th percentile in all of baseball.
DeSantis Just Did What the Media Refused to Do
The Dominican fraud problem is real – MLB suspended a prospect in August after uncovering one of the most elaborate schemes investigators had ever seen, complete with a fake identity, forged documents, and a staged gravesite in La Romana.
That's why the whispers about Caminero existed.
But here's what the sports media wouldn't say: you can't fake 90 home runs and 226 RBIs against major league pitching.
You can't bribe Statcast.
You can't forge a 100th-percentile bat speed reading.
DeSantis said the thing every honest baseball observer already knew – the critics were wrong, the narrative was garbage, and they owe this kid an apology they'll never give him.
That's what makes the tweet worth more than another glowing sports section profile that spent last season explaining why Caminero's numbers didn't really count.
Governors don't usually weigh in on baseball records.
DeSantis did it because this wasn't about baseball – it was about a media class that decided a 22-year-old Dominican kid's historic season needed an asterisk, and a Florida governor who wasn't going to let that stand.
Sources:
- Field Level Media, "Rays slugger Junior Caminero becomes youngest to homer in 6 straight games," Field Level Media, July 1, 2026.
- Sarah Langs, "Caminero youngest since 1900 to homer in 6 straight," MLB.com, July 1, 2026.
- ESPN, "Sources: MLB suspends prospect over false identity, age plot," ESPN, August 28, 2026.
- Flash Score, "Junior Caminero makes Rays history with 30 home runs in back-to-back seasons," Flash Score, 2026.
- Ron DeSantis, @RonDeSantis, Twitter/X, September 8, 2026.
