Despite the brotherly bond Kolten and Kean Wong share, the two have never been teammates.

With Kolten being five years older than Kean, the two played on different youth teams their entire lives. Both brothers eventually turned pro, but for different franchises.

That all changes in 2023, as Kean signed a minor league deal with the Seattle Mariners on Feb. 20, the same franchise Kolten was traded to in December.

“It’s incredible,” Kolten Wong told KHON2 sports director Rob DeMello. “I was telling the guys because, I mean, that’s been the common question with everybody in the clubhouse, you know, like you guys have you guys played together before and have you guys done any of this? We’re five years difference in age, so in high school I was missing him by one year. Little leagues, we were always too far apart.

“And then as he was kind of going through his pro baseball ranks, I was five years ahead. So, we didn’t really have that, like, brotherly communication. We’ve always been just grinding in different parts of the country and whatnot. To finally have this come full circle, year ten for me, pretty cool, man. I’m excited.

“Seeing him down at the end of the locker room, like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy.’ I definitely am excited to see him every day. It’s crazy to know that my brother’s ten lockers down from me.”

To Kean, he can’t help but laugh when seeing his brother in the clubhouse. With Kolten being someone he’s leaned on over the years, he believes seeing him in a baseball environment daily will only make him better.

“We always see each other. We always just laugh,” Kean said. “We just have a good time with this because we know it’s not going to last too much longer. We just enjoy every single time we see each other, we always talk. We also know it’s our job, so we kind of take that seriously. But at the same time, like I said, we just having fun with it. I’ve always gone to him through ups and downs and for everything for baseball, I’ve gone to him. So just to be able to have him in the clubhouse, to talk to him face to face and just him being around just kind of makes me a better player.”