Maile Christmas! Rays catcher shares memories

ST. PETERSBURG — Luke Maile is one of the Rays’ three catchers heading into the 2017 season, along with Wilson Ramos and Curt Casali.

The native of Edgewood, Ky., was recalled from Triple-A Durham over the All-Star break and started 35 of the team’s 74 games after the break.

The 6-foot-3, 225-pound Maile played well, throwing out seven of 25 attempted basestealers, and the staff had a 3.14 ERA with Maile behind the plate, compared to 4.48 with all of the other catchers.

Recently, MLB.com caught up with Maile, who shared some of his Christmas memories in the following Q&A.

MLB.com: What was your favorite Christmas moment growing up?

Maile: Probably when I was 5 years old. I really wanted a bike. And I came downstairs, probably around 5:30 in the morning, and sure enough, Santa left me a bike. It was a little mountain bike for kids. It was red and looked so new and shiny. I was just so excited. It was probably about 15 degrees outside that day, and I just rode it all over the place. I couldn’t get enough of it. Ironically, I rarely rode a bike after I was 10 years old. But at the time, that was huge for me, because I had a bunch of friends who lived in different neighborhoods and I wanted to go and hang out with them. That made it a lot easier.

MLB.com: You grew up in Kentucky, so did you usually experience a white Christmas?

Maile: I’d say maybe a third of the …

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