This Baseball Underdog Story Isn't Taking Place on the Field

On Sept. 4, 2025, Rio Foster won Northwest League Player of the Month. Less than 24 hours later, he lay face down in a pool of blood in the middle of the road in Richland, Wash.

Once a hot, rising professional baseball prospect, Foster is now wheelchair-bound and fighting for the chance to live a normal life. It’s par for the course for a young man who has been the underdog his whole life.

“Foster, a 22-year-old outfield prospect, was drafted in the 16th round by the Los Angeles Angels in 2023,” The Athletic reports. “He should be preparing for a new season, continuing to build on a professional career defined by its underdog status. He comes from football-crazed Athens, Georgia, needed a scholarship to get a Little League spot, and was only drafted after getting spotted at a junior college.”

Now, Foster is recovering from injuries he sustained in a car crash in the fall of 2025. Here’s more from The Athletic:

At 2:04 a.m. on Sept. 5, first responders arrived at the scene of a single-car accident to find Foster face down in the road. His head, according to reports from the Richland, Washington Police, was in a pool of blood. A witness who checked on Foster before EMTs arrived heard him gurgling, struggling for every breath.
He was in the passenger seat of the car when the driver, who acknowledged she was impaired by alcohol, failed to negotiate a roundabout. Foster, who was not wearing a seatbelt, flew through the car window when it flipped and crashed into a pole.

Foster’s mother, an elementary school teacher, has had to miss work to be with her son, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in the crash in addition to his physical paralysis. His father works at a poultry plant and can’t drive on highways, so his time with his son is limited.

The once promising prospect has a long, slow recovery ahead of him. The Athletic reports:

Foster gazes right into your eyes, but with the blank look of someone not actually seeing you. He’s there, but he isn’t.
Sometimes he won’t say anything when you talk to him. Sometimes he’ll respond, or proactively talk on his own. The other day, he woke Oliver up to demand the remote. He’s asked for a haircut. He’s talked about his favorite baseball team, the Dodgers. That Sunday, he said he wanted to listen to rapper Rod Wave.
The moments when he shows any flash of his former self are thrilling for his mother, sparking both hopes and memories.

Finances were a natural concern as well. Foster’s mom, Iris Cleveland, worried that her son’s insurance would lapse as 2026 dawned. A GoFundMe raised about $67,000, but that money is running out. Less than two weeks ago, the Angels were noncommittal about whether the team would help with insurance or medical bills going forward.

“We continue to stay in regular contact with Rio’s family but would prefer to keep those conversations private,” a team spokesman told The Athletic.

Cleveland said that no one from the team had spoken to Foster or any other family member since November. Then, The Athletic drew attention to Foster’s situation, and the Angels organization changed its tune.

“The Los Angeles Angels have committed to insuring injured prospect Rio Foster through 2026, Foster’s mother said Friday,” The Athletic reported on Friday. “The team will also pay out Foster’s contract in 2026.”

“Them giving me another year — allowing me to figure some things out, that really, really helped,” Cleveland told The Athletic. “I was starting to feel the pressure. It eases the stress.”

“It puts my mind at ease,” she added. “I don’t have to think about it for at least a year, and it allows me to move forward and think about his process. I’m thinking about him getting better, as opposed to worrying how the bills get paid.”

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