by Jorge Posada
If I associate my father with the odors of leather and tobacco, my mom reminds me of the mouthwatering cooking smells of arroz con frijoles negros, carne, and platanitos. My dad worked hard to provide for us, and my mom worked hard to keep us well fed and neatly clothed. She was from the Dominican Republic, and she had brought her favorite recipes with her. The best things she brought with her were her parents, my grandmother Lupe and my grandfather Rafael. To give you an idea how close I was to them and how different my relationship with them was, I called him Papí Fello and her Mamí Upe.
I spent a lot of time with them both, until Papí Fello died when I was eight. Mamí Upe remained a big part of my life well into my adulthood. I loved that woman so much. Every summer when I was growing up we would travel to Dominicana—Santo Domingo, to be precise—to spend time with the two of them. Also, before and after Papí Fello died, Mamí Upe would come to Puerto Rico to spend a few weeks and sometimes a couple of months with us.
Latin Americans have a reputation for being passionate and sometimes loud people who talk over one another and break into song and start dancing at any moment. That was Mamí Upe, a walking, talking, clothes-making, cooking Carnaval Ponceño of a grandmother. She came in and made life fun for us, and when she left, the Lent of the rest of our lives returned and we gave up a lot of our festive nature until her return. She told us great stories about her life and the rest of the Villeta family, including my aunts Madrinita, Leda, Mili, Nora (whom I called Nona), and my mom. I especially loved the stories she’d tell about going to the National Parade in Santo Domingo, the oldest carnival celebration in the Americas. Her eyes would light up when she told us about the Diablos Cojuelos—people dressed in elaborate costumes that suggested the Devil and his helpers.
She’d sit there sipping her rum and milk, her high-pitched voice rising and falling as she described being chased along the Malecón (the waterfront) by these devilish characters with their huge teeth and gaping mouths. She’d take a big gulp of her drink and sit there laughing, her shoulders heaving, and she’d pat her leg and I would climb into her lap, the sweet and sharp smell of alcohol and milk and the sound of her wheezing breath forming a pleasant cloud around my head. She’d tuck me in at night, making sure that I said my prayers. I can still picture her stopping at the doorway after the lights were off. I waited for her to mouth the words “Te amo” before I’d shut my eyes.
She always told me how handsome I was, and that was good to hear since at school I was teased constantly with the nickname “Dumbo” because of my protruding ears. If life with my father on his return to the house was like a classroom falling silent when a teacher enters the room, then life when Mamí Upe left was a necessary but no fun post-party cleanup. Then, a few days or even weeks later, you’d come across something you hadn’t picked up and you’d smile, thinking of how great that night was.
Like my dad, she was tough. My mom didn’t drive, so we only had the one car. To get groceries I’d take my bike with a basket attached to the handlebars several times a week and sometimes several times a day. But when Mamí Upe was there, we’d all walk to the grocery store sometimes as much as three times a day. Kid miles are different from real miles, but it didn’t seem like it was that long of a trip. I remember Mamí Upe and me, both at home and in the DR, walking along together, her with bunches of groceries under her arms and one hand on my shoulder, steadying me and making sure I didn’t wobble into traffic.
Those trips to Santo Domingo weren’t quite as much fun for me. I enjoyed being with her, but my cousins were all girls, so my baseball obsession had to be put on hold. Not entirely though. I’d listen to games on the radio with Papí Fello. He was a huge baseball fan, so when he was still alive things were better on that front. He told me that I was lucky that my father was Cuban—after all, the Cuban exiles who fled the Ten Years’ War that lasted from 1868 to 1878 had brought the game with them to the DR. He was a big fan of one of the four original professional teams that made up the Dominican league, Los Tigres del Licey. They were kind of like the Yankees of their day (the 1920s) and were so dominant that the owners of the three other teams in the league decided that to make things more competitive they’d create another team formed with their best players. That team was Los Leones del Escogido.
“Tigers” and “Lions” were great names for those teams, but when I heard more about another dictator and his role in baseball, it was like my mind shut down. I knew that Rafael Leónidas Trujillo was someone important, but I wasn’t all that interested in my grandfather’s history lessons about Caribbean baseball. I loved the game, but the politics of it just didn’t matter to me then. Later on, I’d appreciate a bit more the history of baseball in my region. But my young mind was on baseball played on a continent not too far from where I lived.
When I was back in Puerto Rico with my two best friends, Manuel, who lived across the street from me, and Ernesto, who lived next door, we played baseball with a plastic ball and a stick every chance we got. I don’t think I understood this at the time, but I was fortunate that Ernesto was two years older and Manuel one year older than me. I could hold my own against them, and playing against kids who were more physically mature helped me. It also established a pattern that stayed in place for nearly my entire baseball career. No matter the team I played on, no matter the league, I was never the superstar, the stud, the phenom that a lot of big league players were. Along with what my father was teaching me about hard work, I realized that because I wasn’t as gifted as everybody else, I had to work hard, but also that my passion for the game could help me overcome some of my deficiencies.
I was kind of a skinny version of a bobble-head doll with a tiny body and an oversized head. I’d eventually catch up to everyone else physically, but it wouldn’t be until late in my high school days.
When I was in the backyard with Ernesto and Manuel, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was just thinking that I was lucky to be able to scrounge up the materials to make baselines in the grass with house paint, install a home plate, a pitching rubber, and bases I “borrowed” from my dad.
We had some unusual ground rules in my home park. A ball hit onto the roof of the house was an out because the ball would get stuck on the flat roof and we’d have to suspend the action for a bit while someone climbed up there to get it. We had some iron grates that ran around the house; hitting the ball over the grate was a home run, hitting it on a fly was a double, and bouncing one off it was a single. Talk about having to have good bat control. A homer required just enough power, but not too much.
I liked pitching just enough as well. There were instructions on the box about how to hold the Wiffle ball in your hand to get it to move certain ways, but mastering the art of the Wiffle ball didn’t interest me. I didn’t get nearly the same sense of satisfaction when I heard the sound of a bat slicing through air when no contact was made as I did when I heard the sharp plastic thwack of a well-struck ball. That didn’t mean that I never tossed a ball around. I did that constantly, even in the house, lying in my bed and tossing a baseball off the ceiling and letting it plop into my glove. That thumping sound was always followed by my mother’s voice, “Ay, Jorge. Leave the ball alone.” My mother supported my baseball habit as much as my dad did, but they each had different limits. My mom was okay with me getting off the bus and dashing into the house, tossing my books down, and going out to play. She just didn’t want to have to hear that constant thumping and have to clean up the ball marks on the ceiling.
Even then, I saw a big difference between throwing something and pitching a baseball. If I didn’t love pitching, I did love throwing a ball or just about anything. I could spend hours in the backyard tossing rocks at various targets. As I got older I enjoyed games of burnout with my teammates and friends. The object is to throw the ball as hard as you can so that you hurt the hand of the guy you’re playing against. As you get older and more accurate, you add the element of hitting the target your opponent holds. If he has to move the
glove to catch the ball, you don’t earn any points. I could also make myself dizzy-sick by tossing pop-ups into the air and running to catch them.
Sometimes people not directly involved in our games became my opponent. Because of the way my field was set on our property, we had our own version of a quirky Green Monster—hitting one over this fence resulted in an out because it was the worst possible outcome: the fence bordered the home of a cranky guy who didn’t want anybody in his yard. He was unpredictable. Sometimes he’d be cool and he’d toss the ball back to us. Other times he’d toss the ball onto the roof of his house and stand there with his hands on his hips, daring us to come over onto his property.
Once, when I was about eight or nine, Mamí Upe was visiting and I was out in Jorge Posada Jr. Stadium playing with my two buddies. I threw a nasty rising fastball in on Manuel’s hands, and he fouled it back. I sank to my knees as the ball landed in Mr. Mad Man’s yard. We called out to him, and he slid his patio door open and rubbed the palms of his hands in his eyes. His dog, a standard poodle that was nearly as tall as me but very friendly, trotted alongside my neighbor as we walked over to where our Wiffle ball lay. Without saying anything to us, he picked up the ball and handed it to his dog. In a few seconds that perfectly round ball was a flattened disk of slobber and plastic.
I couldn’t believe it. We all stood there muttering “Dios mío” and a lot worse under our breath. Mr. Mad Man walked back inside his house and shut the door. We had a couple of other balls, but they were scuffed up and one was held together with electrical tape. In my mind, I could hear my dad saying something about how balls don’t grow on trees. We played a couple more innings, then Ernesto and Manuel had to go home for lunch. Because of my dad’s work schedule, especially in the summer, we ate lunch kind of late—at two o’clock precisely. I had an hour or so to kill, and without baseball or school to occupy my mind, some not so good thoughts crept in.
I crept into the house, careful not to alert my mom or Mamí Upe to my presence. I went to my room and tucked my BB gun under my shirt and snuck back outside. The midday air was thick with clouds gathering for a storm. I did the Marine crawl to the back fence, and without really giving it much thought, opened fire on Mr. Mad Man’s patio door. I heard a few high-pitched plinks and then crawled back toward the house. Once I got inside the house, Mamí Upe stood there. When she saw my gun, she first shut her eyes and then raised them toward the ceiling.
“I know you did something, Jorge,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”
I shrugged my shoulders. She knew that I wasn’t allowed to use the gun unless my dad was around. My body was vibrating with guilt and adrenaline. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I didn’t know how Mamí Upe would have responded, let alone my dad, if she knew what I’d done, and I didn’t want to find out. I’d never done anything like that before. I’d been disobedient, but never that destructive or that vengeful. It was as if the Mad Man’s spite had infected me, and the whole “two wrongs don’t make a right” lesson was ringing in my ears and in my mind as images of me pulling that trigger got my tears starting. I wanted to undo those past few minutes, but I couldn’t.
Then my mom came into the kitchen.
Mamí Upe rolled her eyes and pointed at my gun and said, “¡Mira! ¡Lo que el diablo te ha hecho hacer!”
I told her that the Devil hadn’t made me do anything. But seeing the look on her face made me feel sick to my stomach. I’d disappointed her, and that hurt more than anything else.
The two women shook their heads and looked at the clock. It was five minutes to two, and my father was due home any second. He was very strict about our two o’clock lunchtime. If you weren’t there at exactly two, you didn’t get to eat. I was there on time, but I had been told that I could not use the gun unless he was around. If only my mom and my grandmother had known what I had really been up to.
“Hurry now,” Mamí Upe said to me. “Go into your room. Close the door and pray. Ask Jesus to calm your father. Make him calm, please. Say this again and again.”
I did as she asked, until my heart skipped a beat when I heard my father’s car in the driveway. I hustled back into the kitchen and sat at the table. Michelle was already there, and my father kissed her forehead as he passed her before taking his seat.
I sat there, silently praying again, asking God to keep those two women quiet. We all sat there in silence, listening to the thunder and the huge drops of rain spattering outside. Lightning flashed and the lights flickered. My father frowned and said, “This will pass quickly.” He then pointed at me and said, “When I get home later, we have some work to do.”
I nodded and gulped a bit of rice and beans past my tense throat, a tear coming to my eye.
“Yes,” I said. “I know. I’ll be ready.”
After my father finished and left, we were all still at the table. I was about to thank the two of them. My mother held up her hand. “Don’t thank us. Just be better.”
“May I be excused?” I asked.
Mamí Upe held out her arms to me and I walked into her hug.
“Be a good boy,” she said.
In addition to all his other jobs, my father worked for years as a baseball scout; in 1983 he began to do that work full-time for the Toronto Blue Jays. I quickly came to know their lineup by heart. The 1983 Blue Jays had some names familiar to most fans—Dámaso García, Alfredo Griffin, Jesse Barfield, and Cliff Johnson. But there were some less familiar guys as well, like Rance Mulliniks, Ernie Whitt, and others whose names—Garth Iorg, Mickey Klutts—just stick in your mind.
To be honest, I followed major league baseball in general, not one particular team. That was one advantage of following baseball from Puerto Rico: because none of the teams were based there, I didn’t feel a need to be a fan of any one team. I didn’t inherit any fan history from my family, so I was kind of a free agent. I guess in a way I was like the Yankees of the 1980s, always looking to acquire a guy for my mental team (I can’t say “fantasy” team because of what that has come to mean) that I liked. I loved Don Mattingly and Dave Winfield—they were two of my favorite players. But when it came time to step up to the plate in my backyard, the guy I always wanted to be was George Brett. During my elementary school years, the Kansas City Royals were at the middle and then nearing the end of a run that had begun in 1976 and included two World Series appearances. After that, they wouldn’t get into the playoffs from 1986 until 2014. George Brett was the leader of that earlier team, and a hitter I really admired.
What I thought was cool about Brett was his approach at the plate. He would settle into the box, rock back on his heels, arch his back so his head was behind his butt, and then bounce out like a guy getting out of bed. I’d watch him hit and think that he was going to fall asleep before the pitcher delivered the ball.
But the guy I really loved to imitate and watch was Don Mattingly. It seemed like he used a different stance every game. Every time one of his games came on TV, I’d watch it and wonder what he was going to do that day. Was he going to turn his left foot (his back foot) sideways? How many degrees was he going to twist it? And it wasn’t just from game to game that he’d do something different—during the course of a game he’d seem to never get up there the same way twice, and sometimes he even switched things up a bit during an individual at-bat.
I wasn’t some kind of childhood baseball genius who picked up on all of this naturally. I spent some time watching games with my dad—a lot of time actually, especially as I got into my teens. Before that, we’d watch the game and he’d point out a few things, but I don’t think I consciously understood everything he was saying. I learned just by being around the game almost constantly. Living in Puerto Rico was great because we basically played the game year-round.
Before I started to play competitively, it wasn’t like my dad had me out doing fielding drills and hitting in a batting cage every day—that would come later. But he was always working on the mental skills it takes to succeed, I now r
ealize, at anything. My dad instilled in me two important points that are part of what you could call having a good work ethic—don’t quit and never get comfortable with losing or failing.
I took those lessons to heart on the playing fields as I competed in all kinds of sports, but they didn’t really take hold in the classroom. Because my father had some connections, I was able to attend the American Military Academy (AMA) in San Juan. It was located near the border of two of San Juan’s districts, Guaynabo and Bayamón—which were named for the two rivers that intersect near them. Today the website of the AMA in San Juan tells the story—it mentions the academy’s high academic standards and the excellent sports teams. I would have been okay with the school, and the school might have been okay with me in the long run if it hadn’t been for those academic standards. I wasn’t a horrible student, but I wasn’t the most motivated student either. I liked history, particularly the Puerto Rican part of it, but I really didn’t like studying English at all. I got passing grades in just about every class but English.
I’d tell my mom that I was doing my best, and she’d believe me. I’d tell my dad that and he’d be doubtful. I think that back then I really did believe that I was trying my best, but I can see now that I wasn’t. My best would have meant spending a lot more extra time studying, seeing teachers for help, and all the rest. I was used to being pretty good at doing things, so struggling so much with a class was frustrating. Once I got frustrated, I got angry or tearful, and often some combination of the two feelings, neither of which produced the kind of results that my parents wanted to see.
Not succeeding in getting good grades complicated my life in lots of ways. First, I had to attain a certain grade point average to be allowed to compete in the sports programs the school was so proud of. I wasn’t that motivated to stay eligible for the AMA sports programs because I was also able to compete in a number of different sports through the various social clubs that were a big part of life in San Juan and elsewhere.