Cody Bellinger with his father Clay and mother Jennifer after a game. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)

By Rowan Kavner

When the Dodgers return home from their road trip Monday night to host the Nationals, it will be Firefighter Appreciation Night at Dodger Stadium.

For Cody Bellinger, that’s every night.

Following his stint as a Major League Baseball player, Bellinger’s father Clay has since become a firefighter in Gilbert, Ariz., just a few miles outside Cody’s hometown of Chandler.

“It’s a really hard job to get into,” Cody said. “The shifts are tough. Sometimes it’s 24, sometimes it’s 48 hours. But, it’s a pretty cool job.”

It’s cool enough that Clay, who’s now been a firefighter for 10 years, calls the job “the best in the world.”

“Ask any kid in America, what do you want to be? You want to be a baseball player or a fireman,” Clay said. “I’ve been blessed to do both of them.”

Through both careers, Cody was around.

As a 5-year-old kid, Cody grew up roaming the Yankees clubhouse, watching his father play. He thinks back to the baseball legends he was around at a young age because of his father. His favorite player, to this day (apart from his father), is Derek Jeter.

He wishes he remembers more from that time. But while the memories might be hazy, the values he began to learn then from his father at that age remain clear.

“Growing up in the clubhouse when he was playing, he was a respectable guy,” Cody said. “He told me to respect the game as much as I can and respect the players around it, and that’s what I try to do.”

As Cody now gets older and lives out his Major League dream, the 21-year-old realizes just how much goes into his father’s current responsibility as a firefighter, beyond it being the cool occupation every kid wants.

“He’s been in like six fires, been in a lot of car accidents, those kinds of things,” Cody said.

Cody’s always considered his dad a role model, and that holds as true today as it did in the early 2000s when Clay was playing ball.

When his time as a baseball player concluded, Clay had friends who decided to become firefighters and explained to him that it was like “a mini clubhouse.”

“The easy part is hanging out with the fellas,” Clay said. “The hard part is obviously when the tones go off, you’re going to a job, you don’t know what’s going on.”

While Clay’s duties as a firefighter obviously require him to be in Arizona more often than not, he’s done his best to be there for Cody as his son continues to thrive during his first Major League stint.

The whole Bellinger family flew out to San Francisco for Cody’s Major League debut and have attended multiple home Dodger games since, sometimes making the five-and-a-half-hour drive from Arizona to do so.

“The ‘wow’ moment was when he called us at midnight the first night and said he was going to San Fran, that was pretty special,” Clay said. “Then, probably walking into San Fran into the ballpark and getting down to the field and having him come walking out in his pregame BP stuff and giving him a hug and telling him, ‘Congrats.’ I think that was probably the, ‘Wow, he’s finally where he belongs’ moment.”

There have been plenty since.

Cody’s become the fastest Dodger ever to 11 home runs, extending what was supposed to be a short taste of the Majors into 35 games with the big-league club. And as Cody continues to put together one of the best starts to a career in team history, his family members aren’t the only ones following along back in Arizona.

As a firefighter, there’s a camaraderie that builds. Despite the Diamondbacks being the hometown team, Clay’s coworkers have made it a point to follow Cody’s journey. They even bought MLB Extra Innings to watch his games at the station.

“My firefighter buddies back home where I work in Gilbert, now they’re watching Dodger games every night,” Clay said. “They text me every night, and people are going out to buy the MLB package. It’s crazy the support he has.”

(For more information about Firefighter Appreciation Night and the special event ticket package that includes a ticket to the game and a commemorative Firefighter Appreciation Night T-shirt, visit www.dodgers.com/firefighter.)