The Journey Home

by Jorge Posada

  Dedication

  PARA MI FAMILIA.

  MY MOTHER, MY FATHER, MY SISTER, LAURA, JORGE, AND PAULINA.

  YOU ALL TAUGHT ME SO MUCH, ESPECIALLY HOW TO LOVE.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue The Pile

  Chapter 1 Bad Boys

  Chapter 2 Yo Soy Puertorriqueño

  Chapter 3 No Pain, No Gain

  Chapter 4 Growing Pains

  Chapter 5 The Next Step

  Chapter 6 Moving On

  Chapter 7 The Education of a Catcher

  Chapter 8 On the Brink

  Chapter 9 Settling In

  Chapter 10 Making It There

  Chapter 11 Wins and Losses

  Chapter 12 Eyes on the Prize

  Chapter 13 Our City, Our Loss

  Chapter 14 Painful Changes

  Chapter 15 That Winning Feeling

  Chapter 16 Home Again

  Acknowledgments

  Photo Section

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  The Pile

  In 2009, a few days after we’d won the World Series, I was out with my family enjoying a celebratory dinner. We were heading home to South Florida in a few days, and it felt good to have the season over and to be enjoying a warm late fall evening. After we finished, Laura and I sat while Jorge Jr. and Paulina spooned up some ice cream. I saw the look of mischief in my daughter’s eyes, shook my head, and whispered, “Don’t even think about it.” She went back to using her spoon as she was supposed to, instead of as a launcher.

  When we stood to leave the restaurant, a man came up to me, his Yankees hat in his hand. I appreciated that he’d waited for us to finish before approaching.

  “Jorge, excuse me, but I was hoping you could . . .”

  He held out the hat and a silver marker.

  “Of course.” I took the hat and signed it.

  “I’m a huge fan,” he said, nodding over to where his family sat. “My wife did a great thing for me this year. I don’t know how she did it, but she got us seats for our anniversary. Section 20. Right behind the plate. Best seats in the house. I could see everything, just like you.”

  “It must be great back there,” I said and handed back his hat.

  “The whole field is spread out in front of us. Amazing. Thank you and congratulations.”

  He was right that it’s amazing to have nearly every part of a baseball game play out in front of you—the view from that part of the stadium is remarkable—but he got one thing wrong: I had the best seat in the house, on that night and every night I sat behind home plate. If he thought that those seats in the Legends section of the new Yankee Stadium made him feel like he was a part of the action, imagine what it was like for me to squat behind the plate and participate in every pitch.

  I always wanted to play in the big leagues. It was a desire that my father planted and nurtured in me from a young age. “Planted and nurtured” may not be the best expression because it might make you think of someone working in a pretty garden raising flowers. What I went through, starting as a small child, was more like a farmer rising very early every day and working his butt off in the heat, the sun, and the rain and enduring whatever else Mother Nature threw at him.

  When I think of my career with the Yankees and remember those games from behind the plate, I see Mariano’s cutter splintering another bat, Derek cruising into the hole, Bernie stalking a fly ball into the gap, Clemens scowling over the top of his glove, Andy smiling as another double-play ball wraps up an inning, the dog-pile near the mound as we celebrate another World Series win. What may not make sense is that there are many times when those images get edged out by visions of another kind of pile.

  In 1983, I was 12 years old. I woke up one summer morning to a whining sound and regular beeps coming from in front of our house in Santurce, Puerto Rico. I looked out the window and watched as a dump truck backed up our driveway. Seconds later, its bed rose in the air and an avalanche of dirt, the color of terra-cotta tile, puked onto our driveway. I felt each clod hit me in the pit of my stomach. This was not good.

  I quickly got dressed and went into the kitchen. My mother, Tamara, was busy at the stove, and the sound of something sizzling made it hard for her to hear my whispered question: “¿Que pasó? ¿Donde está Papí?”

  Almost on cue, my father came in. He tucked a paper into the pocket of his guayabera shirt and then nodded his head toward the door that led from the kitchen to the backyard.

  “¿Lo ves?” He held his arm out to indicate our backyard, an expanse of scrub grass that ran downhill from the house.

  “Sí,” I said, wondering why he was asking me if I saw what was obvious.

  Without another word, he led me around the side of the house to the driveway. Again we stopped and he pointed: “¿Lo ves?”

  I looked at the pile of dirt that rose above the level of our single-story home’s roof.

  I felt my heart drop.

  “Sí. Lo veo.” Something told me that I wasn’t just out with my father to test my vision.

  He went on: “Tienes que mover la tierra para la parte de atrás de la casa.” He pointed at the pile and then moved his head, indicating the backyard. “Para nivelar el terreno.” He ran his hand parallel to the ground to indicate what my task was.

  “Tienes dos meses.” He held up two fingers, and I understood that I would be hauling dirt from the driveway to the backyard for essentially most of my summer vacation.

  “El trabajo será bueno para usted.” My father flexed his biceps and nodded at me.

  I stood there shaking inside, thinking that this was some kind of punishment and not work. I didn’t dare to indicate my displeasure, my disbelief, my feeling that, if I could, I would use that dirt to bury this man, not to level off our backyard. My father walked around the pile and disappeared for a moment. I took the opportunity to shake my head in disgust. What was I going to tell my friends when they wanted me to go to the beach with them? Or to the club? Or even just to ride our bikes?

  My father came back, pushing a wheelbarrow. In it lay a shovel. I started grabbing handfuls of the dirt. Surprised by how cool and slick the dirt was, I dropped each handful into the wheelbarrow. Nearly as much stuck to my hands as landed in the wheelbarrow. I took a quick glance at my father, who stood there with a “how could this boy be so dumb?” expression on his face. I grabbed the tool and jabbed it into the ooze. It resisted my efforts. I dug in again. I hoisted the full shovel and felt it strain against the muscles of my arms and shoulders. I lifted it over my head and shook it, seeing the few clods tumble into the wheelbarrow.

  My father went back into the house. I shut my eyes and brought my hands to my face to press them against my eyes and shut out the frustration and anger welling inside me. I’d show him. I’d get this job done in no time. I wouldn’t let him take my summer of fun away from me.

  For the next two weeks, I went after that dirt pile with a vengeance. With the exception of breaks for lunch and dinner, I dug into that pile hour after hour, both cursing and being grateful for the daily rains. The rain washed away some of the dirt in a red bloodstream down our driveway. After the rain, the sun baked that pile into a hardened mass, a kind of upside-down clay pot that I had to hammer at.

  At 12, I was a skinny kid with spindly arms and legs, built like a spider with a not very substantial torso. Initially, I thought that wheeling the dirt would be the fun part. It wasn’t. Gravity was a fierce opponent. The handle of both the shovel and the wheelbarrow tore at my skin.

  Even though I got used to the routine of the work, at that time—and for a long time after—I didn’t appreciate my father giv
ing me that task, let alone understand why he made me take it on. On my worst days, I’d return to the house vowing that I would never touch that pile of dirt again—I didn’t care what my father did to me.

  As always, my mother was there for me. She treated and dressed my wounds. She assured me that I’d be okay. At night, after I’d gone to bed, I heard her take up my case for me.

  “He’s a boy. This is so hard.”

  “Leave it alone. I know what I’m doing.”

  Like me, my mother knew it was best to drop it. Just like that earth that solidified in the driveway, over time my father would become an even more solidified and unmovable object. His stubbornness was legendary.

  In the end, I finished the task in a few weeks instead of all summer. (My stubbornness was like my father’s.) I’d like to tell you that I celebrated and felt a great sense of accomplishment, but all I felt back then was relief that the ordeal was over and regret that it had been a waste of my time. I wanted to be with my friends and forget the whole thing had ever happened.

  Now as I sit here, 31 years later, a tear comes to my eye as I think of those days. The tears come from a mixture of anger and gratitude. I understand better what my father was teaching me, because it was in that backyard and other places around Puerto Rico that my dreams took hold. I recognize now that the summer of ’83 was just part of my education as a man and as a ballplayer.

  In time, my hands stopped hurting and my grip—on any handle but also on what life is really like—got stronger. During my 17 years in the big leagues, I never wore a batting glove—after that summer spent with a wooden shovel in my hands, I didn’t want anything to come between the feeling of that wooden bat and me. Over the course of that summer, wheeling the dirt became easier. I developed strength in my arms, shoulders, and back; my balance improved; and my legs got stronger. I was just starting the transition from spindly little kid to young man. More than that, I used my stubbornness and my passion in a positive way to get something done.

  My reward for my hard work? The morning after I finished, I saw on the back patio a stack of paint cans, brushes, scrapers, and sheets of sandpaper. I shut my eyes and waited, knowing that my father would join me in a few moments to tell me what was next.

  From the day I was born and throughout my adult life, my father wanted me to be a ballplayer. I was enrolled in a very special kind of school run by my father, Jorge Luis de Posada, a Cuban refugee who endured more than I ever knew or experienced as a kid. Because of the lessons he taught me—about the game, about how to approach life—I had the foundation I needed to succeed in attaining that goal. I learned those lessons early and then applied them as a way to get to the top of my profession.

  I am incredibly privileged to have played for the New York Yankees at a time when we enjoyed so much success. I was fortunate to come to a city that I came to think of as my home away from home and to play in front of the most passionate, knowledgeable, and loyal fans in the country. Living and playing in New York let me experience some incredible moments off the field—the highs of riding down the Canyon of Heroes in a shower of ticker tape, as well as the lows of being present when the country I’d come to love was attacked.

  But I was also lucky to have a father who cared so passionately about my success and about me. He knew a lot about the game of baseball: he played it in his youth and young adulthood in Cuba and served as a major league scout. Baseball was in my blood and in my house. It still is, and I feel privileged to work with my son, Jorge Jr., as he refines his skills.

  I also recognize this: I wouldn’t have enjoyed the life I’ve lived as a Yankee and as a man if it weren’t for my mother and father. That pile of dirt and clay was a lot like me—it took both my parents to get it moving, to make it useful, and to transform it. That’s what my mother and father—and later other men like Joe Torre—did for me. My father especially taught me this: life seldom presents you with a level playing field. If you work hard enough, believe in yourself enough, and have enough passion and stubbornness, you can level that field yourself.

  In the pages that follow, I’m going to take you back with me, giving you the best seat in the house so that you can see the world from behind the mask. I had a great view of an amazing era in Yankees history. It could have been greater, and that’s part of the story as well. It’s no secret that I hated to lose. My dad taught me that, but he added this: if you hate it so much do everything you can so you don’t. I feel like we’re losing time; let’s play ball.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bad Boys

  I don’t think that anybody is born to play a certain position, but I do know this: when I came into this world on August 17, 1970, there was at least one person who believed that I should be a ballplayer. That was my father. He was so excited to have a son, and he told my mom, Tamara, that he was going to make me into a ballplayer. I’m sure that lots of fathers have big dreams for their children and they all want them to succeed. I’m not sure that all of them have a plan in mind, though, or are willing to take the steps my dad did to ensure that their vision becomes a reality. Mine was.

  As I kid, I wondered how I could live out such a big dream when I was one of the smallest in my grade. I also wondered how I could ever be as accomplished an athlete as my father was. My father didn’t brag, but we had two large albums filled with yellowing pages of newsprint that showed all the things my father had done as an athlete while living in Cuba. One was for “before” and the other “after.” The big event in the middle that helped define those two words was Castro’s take-over of the nation that my father’s family had loved and enjoyed living in for generations. My paternal grandfather had worked in sales for a pharmaceutical company. He drove himself hard to make a good life for his wife, son, and three daughters. He was not around much because of his devotion to his job, but my father learned from his example. No one is going to hand you anything in this life; if you get ahead it is because you wanted to be proud of yourself and what you were able to do for your family. My grandfather was a good track athlete in his day, running 5,000- and 10,000-meter races where endurance mattered as much as speed.

  In looking at the “before” scrapbook, I didn’t fully understand that sometimes circumstances could occur to take things away from you. What I saw was an account of my father setting a national record in the breaststroke, leading his team to a win in basketball, and making a name for himself in baseball to the point that a Philadelphia A’s scout who came to see another player noticed my father’s hustle and talent and offered him a contract. For a long time, I didn’t understand why it was that my father signed that contract but never got to play. I didn’t think too much about what that said about him. I was mostly interested in charting my father’s physical development. I was always the smallest in my grade, a skinny kid with thin limbs. My dad had looked the same way in the early photographs of him as a swimmer, but over the years he became taller and broader and I hoped that I would take after him. I also hoped that one day I’d be able to fill two scrapbooks with my achievements.

  Well before I could read and think at all about my dad’s past and how he was influencing my present and my future, I was already in love with baseball.

  I just loved swinging a bat and watching the ball fly off it in the Puerto Rican sky. I was spending time with my dad, and that was a good thing. Eventually I’d make friends in the neighborhood and also learn to toss the ball to myself and hit mini-versions of fungoes, but almost all of my earliest memories of my dad revolve around either playing or watching baseball together.

  My dad wasn’t big about telling me why he had me do some of the things he did. He was more like that quiet guy in the clubhouse who chooses to lead by example. I knew that my dad worked hard, doing a bunch of different jobs to make a living for us. We lived in a nice house, my dad drove a car, and he left every day early in the morning, came home around dinnertime, and frequently went out again. During the days, my father worked for Richardson-Vicks, a pharmaceutical compan
y, and later for Procter & Gamble. He also coached baseball and basketball, played softball a couple nights a week, and seemed to be in constant motion. Along with his regular job, he sold cigars and baseball gloves to make more money. A few times he made brief mentions of how he had once gone without food, but I never experienced anything like that. Christmas was always a big deal and I can still picture my first bike—a Tyler bike—and my Ford Mustang pedal car. Our car always smelled of leather and cigars—not from armchairs or upholstery but from baseball gloves. To this day, if I could, I wouldn’t mind having the scent of baseball gloves piped into my house. I can still remember sitting there with some of those gloves, trying to figure out what those letters meant. H-E-A-R-T-O-F-T-H-E-H-I-D-E and E-D-U-C-A-T-E-D-H-E-E-L were my first spelling lessons in English.

  Sometimes my dad would take me with him on those after-work sales calls, and I’d sit there watching the palm trees and the hills pass by as we drove around. I’d sit in the car sometimes and watch him hustle away, gloves and boxes of cigars tucked under his arm, him looking like a running back busting through a hole in the line. He wasn’t a big guy—five feet nine inches—but very muscular.

  My mom was always home with me; in fact, she didn’t learn to drive a car until I was in my midteens. Eventually my sister, Michelle, came along, four years later, in 1974. About the time she was born my dad was doing some part-time scouting for the Houston Astros, then later on for the Yankees, and then the Blue Jays. He’d be away on those trips, but never for very long. When I think of those days now, it was like I lived in two different houses. The one I spent time in with my mom and sister had a lot of light and air and laughter in it. In a way, it was like a classroom when the teacher isn’t present. When Dad came home, it wasn’t like everything got dark and suffocating, but we all came to attention, sat up straighter, and wiped those goofy smiles off our faces. My dad commanded respect, and over time I’d learn to fear him as well.