It’ll be the culmination of nine minor-league seasons. But Eliezer Alfonzo‘s major-league debut on Sunday won’t include his family watching from Dodger Stadium.

Alfonzo’s younger sister, Eliana, and stepmother, Patricia, have been missing since last month when earthquakes caused widespread devastation in his home country of Venezuela.

“I’ve been trying to support my dad a lot, every day talking to him, trying to be with him,” Alfonzo said of the elder Eliezer Alfonzo, a retired major-league catcher. “It’s a little tough from here because I would like to be there with him, supporting him every day.”

His father, of course, would love to be in attendance for his son’s debut. He told him as much when he heard the Dodgers were calling him up.

The Dodgers switched their backup catchers Saturday, optioning Chuckie Robinson. They saw an opportunity to give Alfonzo some runway behind Dalton Rushing, with starting catcher Will Smith’s stay on the injured list expected to extend through the All-Star break.

The elder Eliezer Alfonzo, however, is doing whatever he can to locate his wife and daughter. Their dog was found alive, which gave the younger Eliezer Alfonzo hope.

“We’ve just gotta stay together as a family, as a country,” Alfonzo said. “Because I feel like we’re a beautiful country, we’re a really beautiful people over there. It’s not just about my family, it’s all families that have lost people already. But we’ve got hope. We just pray, we ask God to give them back to us alive.”

Alfonzo’s locker in the clubhouse is next to countryman Miguel Rojas’ stall. Rojas’ wife, Mariana, and their two children were in Venezuela, planning to renew Mariana’s passport and seek Venezuelan citizenship for their children, when the earthquakes hit. They managed to stay safe and have returned to the U.S.

“I just want to be here for him,” Rojas said. “At the end of the day, that’s the best thing I can do for him, is being a good teammate and being a friend for him. Because I know there’s going to be ups and downs. He’s going to have a lot of time to be caught [up] in baseball, and that’s going to probably take his mind away from stuff. But sometimes he’s probably going to feel weak, and he’s going to start thinking about his family. So I’m going to be here, I’m right next to him. And that’s what I told him.”

Rojas, who played against the elder Eliezer Alfonzo for years in Venezuela, reached out Saturday morning and promised him he’d save the ball from his son’s first major-league hit.

The United States may not have been in action on Independence Day, but France — who fittingly played an important role in the Revolutionary War — was on the pitch in Philadelphia against Paraguay in a massive Round of 16 clash for a trip to the quarterfinals.

It was a hot day in the birthplace of our nation, and that made things difficult for both teams in more ways than one.

While Paraguay is a great squad, they were significant underdogs against a heavily favored French team led by superstar Kylian Mbappé, who has been lighting it up this tournament.

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Obviously, the heat itself is a factor, but it also made for a slower pitch, something that was believed to play into the hands of Paraguay.

However, most of the action in the first half was played on their end as France put the pressure on through the first half hour of the match.

It was intense, and that intensity boiled over in the 35th minute with some pushing and shoving after Mbappé and Paraguay’s Andrés Cubas started a wild shoving match.

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But while the intensity ramped up — and stayed high for pretty much the entire game — Paraguay weathered the storm and had every reason to feel good about reaching halftime with the game scoreless.

France got some more scoring opportunities in the early part of the second half, including a near-breakaway for Mbappé.

In the 67th minute, France was awarded a penalty kick for a foul against Desire Doue that had to go to VAR for review, and it was Mbappé who took it.

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Mbappé has tended to do most of his damage in the second half, and that trend continued here with him drilling the penalty past Paraguay goaltender Orlando Gill.

That was his 19th career World Cup goal, and his seventh of this tournament alone, tying him with Argentina’s Lionel Messi for the tournament lead.

Paraguay seemed to fade after the Mbappé goal, but turned it on again late, forcing Mike Maignan to make his first save of the day about 89 and a half minutes into the match.

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It seemed like Paraguay’s plan was to try and get a rise out of the French, and they succeeded in drawing three yellow cards. In fact, they even tried to keep that going after the match with players meeting near midfield for some more pushing and shoving.

But France is moving on, and they will take on Morocco in a quarterfinal match on Thursday in Boston.

The Dodgers have four more 2026 All-Stars joining Shohei Ohtani on the National League squad.

Center fielder Andy Pages claimed the first All-Star nod of his career. And third baseman Max Muncy (three) first baseman Freddie Freeman (10) and pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (two) added to their Midsummer Classic honors.

Ohtani (six) bypassed phase two of All-Star voting by earning the most fan votes of any player in the first phase.

All of the Dodgers position players were elected as starters, marking the first time since 1980 that the team has had four All-Star starters.

The MLB All-Star Game will be played in Philadelphia on July 14.