“He’s My Calm”: Phillies Star Nick Castellanos Opens Up About His Bond With Son Liam.y1

PHILADELPHIA — Under the bright October lights at Citizens Bank Park, as the roar of 45,000 fans echoed through the night, a small figure in a red Phillies hoodie darted toward home plate. It wasn’t a fan or a teammate — it was Liam Castellanos, the 10-year-old son of Nick Castellanos. The crowd cheered louder as father and son shared a brief, wordless hug. “He’s my calm,” Castellanos would later say. “When I’m with him, baseball slows down. Life slows down.”

It was a moment that captured everything about who Nick Castellanos has quietly become — not just a power hitter, but a father learning to balance the weight of pressure with the lightness of love.

After hitting two home runs in the 2023 postseason, Castellanos walked into the press room with Liam by his side. When a reporter began to ask a question, Liam simply leaned into the mic and said, “No questions.”
The clip went viral instantly, viewed millions of times.
But behind the laughs, Castellanos admitted, there was something much deeper happening.

“Liam’s presence reminds me that baseball isn’t everything,” he said in an interview with NBC Sports Philadelphia. “He doesn’t care about stats or contracts. He just wants to know if I’m happy.”

That perspective, Castellanos confessed, didn’t come easily.
The Phillies slugger had battled inconsistency, criticism, and the relentless noise of Philadelphia sports media. But when Liam started joining him more often — at practices, pressers, and charity events — everything began to change.

Castellanos says he learned patience, and empathy, through fatherhood.

“Baseball humbles you,” he said. “But being a dad… that teaches you to listen. To breathe. To forgive yourself.”

During one stretch in 2022, when his batting average dipped and boos followed him at home, Castellanos revealed that Liam would leave notes in his locker — short messages written in pencil: “Don’t quit, Dad. You got this.”

He still keeps one folded in his wallet.

“I told him once that baseball is hard,” Castellanos said. “And he just looked at me and said, ‘Then hit the ball harder.’ That’s Liam. Simple. Fearless.”

On his right forearm, under the sleeve that grips his bat, Castellanos wears a tattoo: “Liam” — inked just above the outline of a baseball cap.
He got it after the 2021 season, a period he called “the most confusing time” of his life, balancing trade rumors, contract talks, and the growing awareness that his son was watching every move he made.

“That tattoo isn’t for show,” he told People Magazine. “It’s a reminder that no matter what happens here, I have something real waiting for me when I walk off the field.”

Since then, he’s made it a habit to bring Liam to team charity drives — from delivering holiday gifts to children’s hospitals to handing out meals at local shelters.
And according to teammates, Liam is as much a part of the clubhouse as anyone wearing a Phillies jersey.

“He runs around like he owns the place,” joked Bryce Harper. “But honestly, I think he helps Nick more than we ever could.”

When asked what he wants Liam to learn from all this — the fame, the failure, the fleeting spotlight — Castellanos paused.

“I don’t want him to remember how far I hit a ball,” he said. “I want him to remember that his dad showed up. Every day. Even when things got tough.”

It’s a simple statement, but one that feels rare in a game obsessed with numbers and legacies.
For Castellanos, the legacy he’s building isn’t carved in stats — it’s written in the moments between innings, when he turns in the dugout to see his son’s face in the stands.

There, he finds something baseball can’t give him: peace.

“No questions.” Just love.

As the Phillies chased another postseason run, Liam was once again seen near the dugout — glove in hand, smile on his face, mimicking his dad’s warm-up swings.
When the game ended, Nick knelt down, pulled him close, and whispered something only the two of them could hear.

Maybe it was a reminder of that promise inked on his arm.
Maybe it was just a father thanking his son for keeping him grounded.

Either way, in that quiet moment amid the roar of Philadelphia, Nick Castellanos wasn’t thinking about home runs, contracts, or playoff glory.
He was thinking about the one title that will never fade — Dad.