Venezuela is Cabrera country

 

By Joe Capozzi, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, February 15, 2004

 

MARACAY, Venezuela -- Thirty security guards lock elbows, and Miguel Cabrera makes a play for the parking lot.

 

The high-pitched shrieks hit him first.

 

"Miguelito!" "Marry me!"

 

Nearly 500 fans, many of them teenage girls wearing red Araguas Tigers jerseys with Cabrera's No. 24, lunge toward him after a Venezuelan Winter League game at Estadio Jose Perez Colmenares.

 

Cabrera, his head down, walks quickly through a gantlet of screaming heads, groping hands and flashing bulbs. It is baseball Beatlemania and the guards are taking a beating; one is pulled by the hair, another falls to the concrete and bruises a knee.

 

After about 10 seconds, Cabrera is safe inside his white Jeep Grand Cherokee.

 

"Everybody wants to touch him,'' Rodney Robles, the head guard, says as the crowd chases the Jeep. "It's really hard to keep them back.''

 

At least on this night, no punches were thrown.

 

"There was a brawl in Caracas,'' Araguas pitcher David Manning says. "They were all waiting for him. You're talking thousands of people and they're not leaving. 'Miggy' sneaked out a side entrance and one guy sees him get on the bus, so this guy gets on the bus. The driver tells him to get off. All of a sudden the guy and the driver go tumbling out the door. (The driver) tries to get back in and the guy pulls him out. I grabbed the driver by the neck and yanked him back and the mob started coming after him. Luckily, we got the door closed.''

 

After starting last season with the minor-league Mudcats of Zebulon, N.C., Cabrera became a national darling during the Marlins' improbable autumn run to the World Series title. But he had no idea how life would change when he returned to his hometown of Maracay, the country's former capital that's a two-hour drive southwest of its current capital, Caracas.

 

"It's crazy,'' Cabrera says through an interpreter on a warm January morning. He's relaxing in one of the few places he can escape the hysteria -- his eighth-floor apartment, with a view of the mountains in Henri Pittier National Park.

 

"I don't go to shopping centers anymore. I can't. Everybody's... 'I want your autograph!' "

 

Cabrera mentions his favorite restaurant, Weekend Burger. "I can't go anymore.''

 

"Miguelito" -- the locals know him by one name -- was a rising star in Venezuela before he arrived in Jupiter last February for his first big-league spring training. Then he hit a game-winning home run in his major-league debut in June, and his post-season tear included a home run off Roger Clemens in the World Series.

 

Miguelito Mania was in full swing when he came home to lead the Tigers to the Venezuelan winter league title. Now, the Venezuelan Sportsman of the Year appears in TV commercials for Malton, a popular nonalcoholic beverage, and on calendars hawked from the traffic medians of Maracay's busiest streets.

 

No wonder he's a favorite target of the paparazzi, whose snipers often camp out in front of his apartment building.

 

"Miguelito's a rock star here,'' Araguas pitcher Dan Murray says. "When we get off the bus, they want to see Miguel. They want to talk to Miguel. They want to touch him. They want to get his autograph. And sometimes there is no security. Sometimes you have to be a little physical to get through the crowds.''

 

After the World Series, Cabrera spent a week resting on the island of Curacao, off Venezuela's northwest coast, before sneaking home late one night. A few days later, he went to a movie theater in Las Americas, a swanky shopping center off the busy La Avenida las Delicias in the city's north end. He was lucky to catch the opening scenes of American Wedding.

 

"Everybody kept standing up and talking to him. We had to leave,'' his wife, Rosangel, 20, says as she fixes a bow on the couple's pet dog, a Yorkshire terrier named La Cosita (Little Thing).

 

Cabrera married his high school sweetheart in a civil ceremony in Maracay on June 17, 2002, a few days after the Florida State League All-Star Game. Last month, they renewed their vows in a formal church ceremony that made headlines.

 

But that hasn't stopped women from mailing him underwear or greeting Cabrera's father on the street with cries of "Suegro!'' -- father-in-law.

 

All this fuss over a kid with pimples and a hoop earring who hasn't played a full major-league season. But after hitting 12 home runs with 62 RBI in 87 games in 2003, Cabrera can expect more scrutiny and challenges as the Marlins attempt to defend their championship.

 

"This is an important year for him,'' Davey Concepcion, the shortstop for Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in the 1970s, says as Cabrera takes batting practice at Estadio Alfonso "Chico" Carrasquel in Puerta La Cruz, home of the rival Oriente Caribes.

 

"He needs to learn just a few more things about hitting, laying off some pitches. If he does that, he's going to hit.300.'' The David Torrez Sports Complex is named for Cabrera's uncle, who died of a heart attack in 1997 after he had retired from a baseball career that took him as high as Class AA with the St. Louis Cardinals.

 

Tucked in a neighborhood where stray dogs chase chickens past discarded bottles and trash on Avenida Principal, it's a complex only in name. There's no grass or bases or baselines, only rocks and divots and dust. Mountains rise into the clouds beyond a crumbling outfield fence.

 

The conditions weren't much better that day in November 1998 when Marlins scout Louie Eljaua arrived to meet a 15-year-old schoolboy legend. Miguel Garcia, the Marlins' Venezuela scouting supervisor, had raved about the kid who was competing against older players in professional leagues.

 

"All of a sudden, this kid leaps over the wall,'' Eljaua says. "He's carrying his school books. I said, 'Who's that?' "

 

"That's the kid,'' Garcia replied.

 

"He was 15 at the time,'' Eljaua says. "You look at his face, you think he's 10, but he was 6-feet-1. He was like a man-child. He looked me right in the eye and apologized for being late. He had just gotten done with school. I thought that was very impressive.''

 

Cabrera stretched and started fielding grounders all over the rock-strewn field. Then, with his own wooden bats, he sprayed line drives to all fields. Eljaua went back to his hotel and phoned Al Avila, Florida's scouting director, who less than a week earlier had told Eljaua that new owner John Henry was ready to spend for the future.

 

"Go out and find me the best player,'' Avila told Eljaua.

 

Eljaua was certain his search was over.

 

"I've got the player,'' he told Avila.

 

Says Avila: "I remember I got a little angry at him.... 'We just talked a few days ago. There's no way you already saw a guy that good.' But sure enough I went down to see him. I looked at Louie and said, 'I love this guy.' "

 

So did nearly every other major-league team. But the Marlins won the bidding war -- because of their $1.8 million offer and because Cabrera's parents were impressed with how the team developed Latin players such as Edgar Renteria of Colombia, Alex Gonzalez of Maracay and Livan Hernandez of Cuba.

 

Cabrera signed on July 2, 1999, at age 16. More important for his parents, he graduated from high school a year early.

 

 

'A baseball family'

 

Concepcion, a Maracay native and one of Cabrera's earliest mentors, knows the Marlins' reluctant star has a lot more to accomplish before reaching the status of Venezuelan baseball legends Luis Aparicio, Andres Galarraga and Magglio Ordonez.

 

Cabrera certainly is off to the best start, and that's no surprise to Concepcion, who played as a professional and amateur against Cabrera's parents and uncles.

 

"They are a baseball family,'' Concepcion says. "He was raised to play baseball.''

 

His mother, Gregoria Torrez, met her husband Miguel on a baseball field.

 

"She was better,'' says the elder Cabrera, who become an auto mechanic after his baseball dreams fizzled.

 

Gregoria didn't quit. She was a catcher for the Venezuelan national softball team that traveled around the world for 12 years before she gave birth to Miguel in 1983.

 

When Miguelito was 3, he'd chase the softball around with his mother at her practices. Soon he was learning to hit bottle caps with a broomstick, a rite of passage for Venezuelan kids before they swing at black beans.

 

Cabrera, who now is 6-feet-2, always was bigger than most of the kids who grew up in the poor La Pedrera neighborhood. Once he reached the majors, he moved his parents and sister Ruth, now 17, to a new apartment in a nicer part of town.

 

Photographs throughout his parents' apartment document Cabrera's rise from a toddler hitting a pinata at his third birthday party to a Marlins rookie hitting a home run in the World Series.

 

Gregoria, wearing a Marlins T-shirt, walks into her bedroom, where stuffed animals that once belonged to her son line a bed. "Winnie the Pooh was his favorite,'' she says.

 

"I remember one day when he was 13. They were having lunch at the table -- he loves arepas -- and he told his dad, 'I want to be a big leaguer.' His father said, 'I will help you, but first you must graduate from school.' We have seen so many players go to professional ball and end up not doing anything.''

 

Miguel Sr. remembers telling his son to concentrate on becoming an engineer, not a baseball player. "I told him, 'You don't want to be like me. I work in a body shop. Look how dirty I get, paint all over me. Do the opposite of what I do. I smoke, you don't. I drink, you don't.' "

 

After hitting.365 in 68 games at Class AA Carolina last season, Cabrera was called up to the Marlins on June 20 and replaced the slumping Todd Hollandsworth that night in left field against Tampa Bay. In Maracay, his father followed most of the game on the Internet, then fell asleep after his son had gone 0-for-4 with the game tied at 1 after nine innings.

 

"I woke up at 6:30 the next morning and went to buy cigarettes. I saw the headline, 'Marlins win on Cabrera homer.' I was 'Ese es mihijo!' (That's my son!). I told the clerk I wanted to buy all the papers. He thought I was nuts.''

 

On Oct. 22, Cabrera's extended family gathered in front of a TV at his grandmother's house in the complex where he grew up for Game 4 of the World Series against the Yankees. In the first inning, they saw Clemens whistle a fastball at Miguel's head. "Welcome to the big leagues. My name is Roger Clemens,'' quipped Tito Fuentes, the TV announcer.

 

When Cabrera hit the next pitch over the center-field wall, his father screamed at the TV: "Nice to meet you, too! I'm Miguel Cabrera!"

 

 

Not yet Galarraga

 

Marooned in his apartment before a game in the Venezuelan finals, Cabrera sits on a couch waiting for the start of his favorite TV show, a soap opera called Cosita Rica (Little Rich Thing).

 

The walls above the couch are covered with more than 20 oil paintings that came with the apartment. Cabrera added a few pieces of his own -- plaques and photos and newspaper covers of his Marlins exploits. On a book shelf, next to crystal figurines, are bobble-head dolls of teammate Jeff Conine and Craig Counsell, who was a hero of Florida's 1997 World Series championship.

 

It's late January but a Christmas tree still stands in the living room. Above the tree, tacked to a wall, is a Christmas stocking labeled "Cosita" -- for the Yorkshire Terrier that Miguel bought for his wife last year at a pet store in North Carolina when he was in Class AA.

 

Small enough to fit in Cabrera's glove, La Cosita has a wardrobe of at least 12 dog shirts. Today, she wears a blue one decorated with hearts. He liked the dog so much that he bought another terrier for his mother, who named it Twister.

 

As Cosita naps on his lap, Cabrera smiles when asked about the home run off Clemens. "The moment defined me," he says, "but I have to show this year that I am for real. I have to be consistent.''

 

Some Venezuelan observers view Cabrera as an unproven product of media hype at a time when Andres Galarraga, the country's biggest star, is nearing the end of his career.

 

"We don't have many idols. Our biggest idol is walking off the field and we are trying to find another idol,'' says Alfredo Villasmil, baseball writer for Ultima Noticias in Caracas.

 

"Miguel Cabrera is a very gifted player, but he's had just one good half-season. Is he an idol? No. Not yet.''

 

Cabrera insists he feels no pressure at meeting the expectations of his fans.

 

"I feel like the same person, but I feel as if I need to work twice as much now,'' he says. "When I was coming up, I just wanted to play baseball and I'm doing what I love to do most. How can I feel pressure doing what I love to do? ''

 

And with that, Cabrera is up for a challenge: He wants to go for a walk to a neighbor's house. A few yards into his stroll, a utility truck drives past from the opposite direction.

 

Two heads rubberneck out of the truck's windows. Its break lights come one, followed by the backup lights, and the truck lurches in reverse.

 

"Miguelito!" the driver calls out as Cabrera closes the iron gate to his friend's yard. A passenger climbs over the driver and yells out his window, "How about an autograph?''

 

The two men pile out with copies of invoices -- the only paper they could find -- but the gate is shut. Cabrera turns around and reaches through the bars to sign his autograph.

 

"Gracias,'' the driver says. "Muchas gracias.''

 

 

Young fans

 

In the stands that night during Game 4 at Estadio Jose Perez Colmenares, Victor Celis, a 32-year-old chemical salesman, tries to explain the country's infatuation with Miguelito.

 

"He grew up in a poor neighborhood. He married his first girlfriend. He played in the World Series and he came home and he is still the same person,'' Celis says. "We see ourselves in him.''

 

Dom Castaneda, a dentist from Valencia, is reminded that one remarkable half-season in the majors doesn't mean Cabrera won't have setbacks. Before he can answer, Cabrera strikes out, sending a shower of beer down on the expensive seats from cups tossed by disgruntled fans in the cheap seats.

 

Castaneda pats a napkin on his neck and replies in broken English: "Ask Roger Clemens if he'll make it.''

 

Perhaps Cabrera's biggest impact will come in his own neighborhood, where kids like 5-year-old Mike Torrez go to school wearing Cabrera's Marlins jersey.

 

Norberta Torrez, Cabrera's grandmother, points to a 20-foot almendra tree. There, she says, is where Miguelito and his little sister, Ruth, first played baseball using a stick and wads of paper.

 

Sitting in an empty living room decorated by a single poster of Cabrera swinging a bat for the Marlins, Torrez smiles and seems oblivious to the stray dogs that scamper across the dusty concrete floors at her feet.

 

"He was 6 or 7 when he told me, 'I want to be a professional baseball player,' " she says. "Now, nothing compares to being able to see my grandson realize his dreams.''

 

Just around the corner from his grandmother's house, the field at the David Torrez Sports Complex is full of kids from a school that sits behind the wall along the right-field line. They're chasing fly balls hit by a barefoot teacher on a sunny afternoon.

 

"This was Miguelito's school!'' one kid shouts.

 

"He played right here!'' yells another.

 

"I'm his best friend,'' another insists, prompting laughter among his playmates.

 

"Everybody wants to be just like Miguel,'' teacher Thairy Saveri says, not realizing she has borrowed a marketing line made famous by basketball star Michael Jordan.

 

"They want to go to their studies so they can play baseball when they are done. They want to do what Miguel did.''

 

joe_capozzi@pbpost.com

Great article.

 

Miguelito is the man!

Cabrera married his high school sweetheart in a civil ceremony in Maracay on June 17, 2002, a few days after the Florida State League All-Star Game. Last month, they renewed their vows in a formal church ceremony that made headlines.

wish i was her

 

"Miguelito!" "Marry me!" :shifty

Cabrera married his high school sweetheart in a civil ceremony in Maracay on June 17, 2002, a few days after the Florida State League All-Star Game. Last month, they renewed their vows in a formal church ceremony that made headlines.

wish i was her

 

"Miguelito!" "Marry me!" :shifty :lol :thumbup

Cabrera married his high school sweetheart in a civil ceremony in Maracay on June 17, 2002, a few days after the Florida State League All-Star Game. Last month, they renewed their vows in a formal church ceremony that made headlines.

wish i was her

 

"Miguelito!" "Marry me!" :shifty All you have to do is start calling his father "suegro".......

 

:whistle

Cabrera married his high school sweetheart in a civil ceremony in Maracay on June 17, 2002, a few days after the Florida State League All-Star Game. Last month, they renewed their vows in a formal church ceremony that made headlines.

wish i was her

 

"Miguelito!" "Marry me!" :shifty All you have to do is start calling his father "suegro".......

 

:whistle haha :lolup ... im starting to get an idea lol :angel_not

Miguel is probably singing 50 Cent's song P-I-M-P right now.

Miguel is probably singing 50 Cent's song P-I-M-P right now.

yea and the next thing you kno it...he is signing divorce papers.