The Journey Home

by Jorge Posada

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He smiled that amazing Mariano smile. If it had been me with my career in jeopardy due to an injury, I don’t think that I would have had Mo’s optimistic attitude. As much as anything, that’s what I remember about him from that fall. Nothing seemed to get him down for very long. He was one of the most energetic and positive people I ever met. He was having so much fun being out on the field just shagging flies and running. He would laugh and smile and you would have thought he was a little kid at spring training like I had been all those years before and not someone whose future was in doubt.

  I got to know him better at spring training in ’93. The first time I caught him, I wasn’t that impressed. His fastball topped out at about 92 miles per hour and it was really straight. He didn’t have much of a breaking ball or an off-speed pitch, and I wondered about his durability. He was such a thin guy and for him to get to 92 seemed like a real feat. The thing was, though, he had absolutely perfect mechanics. He could also put the ball where he wanted it with amazing regularity. I thought that was the one thing he had going for him, but against big league hitters, I didn’t think it was going to help him too much. Eventually, he’d prove that my assessment was wrong, but he was a much different pitcher by then than the one I first saw.

  We went our separate ways for the ’93 season. He was assigned to the Rookie League and then to Greensboro. The organization was taking it easy with his arm postsurgery, and he threw less than 40 innings that entire season. Like me, he had a big transition to make, from a starter to a relief pitcher, but that was still ahead of him in ’94. He started six games for us after starting a total of 16 others in high A and AA. If I was feeling good about being double-promoted, then Mariano was skyrocketing through the minors. Like Derek, he was a skinny guy who didn’t impress you with his physical presence, but there was something about the way he carried himself, some calm assurance that was never cocky but let you know he believed in himself and his ability to get people out. He could humiliate you at the plate, but he was always humble.

  Everything in AAA was an upgrade—the salary, the fields, the fans, the meals, all of it, including the umpiring. As my education as a catcher went on, and with Bob Melvin’s assistance, I was learning that the relationship you develop with umpires is another part of the job. I always had respect for them, but there was more to it than just that. In some ways, though, dealing with the umpires was more than I could handle in those early days of catching. There were just too many different pieces of the puzzle. Calling a game, managing the different personalities on the pitching staff, learning the hitters—all of those were things I needed to work on. Bob was great in helping me develop a better feel for pitch selection and strategy. He was a big believer in not messing around too much with hitters. Get ahead. Put them away. I can still hear Bob telling me over and over again, “Finish them.”

  Learning to master all of that would take more time, and suddenly that was the one thing I was out of. In mid-July, just after the All-Star break, we were playing the Mets’ AAA team, the Norfolk Tides, at home in Columbus. Pat Howell was a small guy, a little under six feet tall and about 150 pounds. The scouting report on him was that he could run and make contact, but that he really didn’t have much power, so we didn’t worry too much about him. We fell behind in the count when he led off the inning, and he slapped a “get me over” fastball into right-center for a base hit, then advanced to second on a hit-and-run.

  I saw him break for third on a steal and was rising up out of the crouch as a ground ball went to short. We got the runner at first, but I could see Howell rounding the bag and coming home. I started to yell, “Four! Four!” and for some reason our first baseman, Don Sparks, hesitated a bit before making the throw home. I knew the play was going to be close, so I planted my left foot on the edge of the plate and had my knee turned out slightly toward the third-base bag to try to block the runner. The ball, the runner, and a truckload of pain all arrived at the same time. Sparks didn’t do anything wrong—the throw was good. Howell didn’t do anything wrong—he just slid straight into the plate and had nowhere else to go. I didn’t do anything wrong—I was trying to block the bag as best I could and reach for the throw at the same time. None of us did anything wrong, but I was the one who paid the price.

  I have never felt such intense pain. The impact itself is something that I don’t really remember. That memory was wiped out by a sharp searing pain that traveled from my foot and ankle up past my knee and into my spine. I looked up and I was lying on the ground on my back, screaming, and I saw that my foot was lying turned all the way to the left at nine o’clock and my kneecap was pointing straight up at 12 o’clock. I’m a flexible guy, but not that flexible. My ankle was dislocated, the tendons torn, and my fibula, the bone in my lower leg, was broken just above the ankle. I was alternating screaming and gritting my teeth. I tore at the ground, grabbing fistfuls of dirt.

  Almost worse than that was the mental anguish I was going through. I wanted to scream to keep my mind away from the thoughts that were running through my head and colliding with the reality I was experiencing, sprawled out in that dirt.

  My career is over. My career is over. I’m done. It’s over.

  The trainers were probably there, but I don’t remember much. I was in so much pain that I was barely aware of being taken off the field. I know that a couple of guys lifted me up, and I kept raising my head from the ground to the sky, like a wounded racehorse. Dirt. Sky. Lights. Career over. When they managed to squeeze me through the narrow opening between the dugout and the clubhouse, I was placed on the trainer’s table. I struggled to hold still with adrenaline and frustration and fear coursing through me. Stump Merrill, our manager, came in, and I looked at him while the trainers worked on me, first taking off my shin guards and my chest protector. They dumped them on the ground. I grimaced and gestured toward the gear, “I’m not ever putting that fucking stuff on again. I’m done. I’m not catching again. Never. I’m done.”

  He started to say something, and I rose onto my elbows to prop myself up. I watched as the trainers were cutting off my socks and the leg of my pants. They were supporting my leg with their hands underneath my calf and thigh, and my foot hung there, drooping, pointing toward the ground.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Stump said. “Just relax.”

  I think he thought I was talking about the injury ending my career. I was trying to say I didn’t want to catch again. I’d gone along with everything everyone had told me to do, I’d improved, and this was how the baseball gods rewarded me? Work your ass off for what?

  The trainers gave me something for the pain, and as it kicked in they wrapped my ankle in ice. But even then it was swollen and discolored and looked like it was some part of an extraterrestrial from The X-Files. A few minutes later, I was loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital in Columbus. As clichéd as it sounds, the rest is just a blur. I remember waking up the next morning in the hospital. The orthopedic specialist who did the work came in at one point and talked to me about plates and screws and being non-weight-bearing for six weeks. That figure was what stuck with me, even though I was in a haze of anesthesia and painkillers. Six weeks. I wouldn’t be able to walk on it for six weeks.

  I called my mom. She started crying. She couldn’t stay on the line for long because she was so upset. My dad got on, and he asked me how it happened, what they’d done, what I’d have to do to get back out on the field. He was both sympathetic and already thinking about the next steps. His attitude got me out of the funk I was in, made me stop thinking about what had happened and about what to do next instead.

  Even when I was back in Puerto Rico, the Yankees were great about keeping in touch with me. My not being in the States complicated things a little bit, but they kept an eye on my progress. I had to return to New York to see one of their specialists, Dr. Hershon, to remove one of the seven screws. It was just in there temporarily, and
it had to come out. I hate horror movies, but I was kind of fascinated by what Dr. Hershon had to do. They gave me a shot to numb the area, and then he asked me to help hold back a flap of skin, using a clamping device while he removed the screw. I wanted to see what was going on. Even though blood was running out of the little incision, I could see how white the bone was and I could also see the tendon, like a bit of uncooked chicken under there.

  After six weeks, I was able to start walking, and I rehabbed with the same attitude I had brought to other challenges. I went to a local clinic, and the rehab specialists there put me through a set of exercises that the Yankees’ doctors prescribed. I was surprised by how stiff the ankle was at first. After six weeks of not moving, it was like the joint on an action figure left out in the rain collecting rust and dirt. I felt even more like an action figure sitting there passively as the physical therapist manipulated my ankle, tugging my foot from side to side and up and down.

  I had work to do at home as well. I was given stretchy Thera-bands to add resistance to the movements. Some of the exercises I couldn’t do on my own, so Michelle helped me complete them. The hardest thing to do, because it was so repetitive, was moving my ankle to trace out the letters of the alphabet in the air. Spending hours and hours doing ABCs wasn’t fun, and then there was the icing, always the icing. I had been measured for the number of degrees of range of motion I had in several directions and was told the optimum number I should be working toward. I liked having that measurement as a specific target, a tangible goal I could work toward.

  I’d had that pity party for myself early on, but I kicked all of those partygoers out to make room for rehab. I wasn’t going to let anyone else know about my doubts.

  Still, they were there. It’s funny, baseball is a game of math, of fractions and percentages, and there was no way that I could convert those 92 games I’d played and the 50 I would miss into a comfortable equation. I had so much to work on to become a big league catcher that for every game I missed I felt like I was losing hundreds of experiences—at least one experience per pitch. How was I ever going to be able to make up for that?

  One thing that helped me maintain my focus was hearing from some of the guys in the organization. Ricky Ledée and Rafael Quirico checked in on me, as did Mariano and a few others. Darren London, the Columbus trainer, was also in contact a lot, making sure that my rehab was going okay. Everyone talked about next spring and next season, keeping me focused on what everyone expected was going to be my quick return to the game. “Quick” is a relative term, and being away from the game from July to February was by far the longest break from the game I’d taken in my baseball life.

  My dad was great, offering assistance and support. Together the two of us went to Casa Cuba. My dad had the idea that if I used swim fins and propelled myself up and down the pool just using my legs, I’d strengthen my calf and work my ankle. Since I hadn’t been able to use it at all for six weeks, my calf had suffered the most and was less than half the size it used to be. With a float board in front of me and those fins behind me, it was slow going, but I enjoyed being in the water and the sun. Sometimes my dad would join me in the pool, but my most vivid memories of that time are coming to the end of the pool, seeing him sitting in his lounge chair, a cigar dangling from his mouth as he counted the number of laps, and being told “Diez más.”

  Though the Yankees had been flexible in letting me do most of my rehab in Puerto Rico, at the beginning of February 1995, I reported early to Tampa for an even more intensive round of rehab. I was still feeling a bit frustrated, like my foot and ankle were in a big heavy boot that didn’t allow me to move naturally. I got put through catching drills, and the foot and ankle started to loosen up, but very, very slowly. I also was told to do a lot of walking on the beach, and I did some work there, the sand providing both a soft surface and some resistance.

  Therapy didn’t end once spring training began. I showed up an hour earlier than everyone else each day just to do more work, more ABCs, more Thera-band resistance, more calf raises, more ice. After the daily routine, I was back at it for at least another hour doing much the same work I’d done before, a pattern that continued throughout the regular season. In spring training, being able to take soft-toss and hit off a tee and throw again was some of the best therapy I received. Feeling like I was back doing baseball things was great for me mentally.

  That spring I also was introduced to a man named Gary Tuck. Around baseball, he is widely regarded as one of the best catching instructors, and the Yankees had brought him in to help me. If I’d been nearly overwhelmed before by the emphasis on what seemed like tiny elements of technique, Gary came in with an even more microscopic analysis of what I was doing and was enormously helpful. With all the rehab and all I was absorbing about pitching strategy, the pain in my brain helped take my mind off the pain in my ankle.

  I don’t think I felt completely comfortable that entire season. This was especially true hitting left-handed. Always a back-foot hitter, not having that stable base beneath me, not feeling connected firmly to the ground with that back foot, was frustrating. Hitting a baseball takes the whole body, and when any one part of your body doesn’t feel right, it can produce a whole set of other negative consequences and sensations.

  My power numbers were down. I also struck out 101 times, 20 more strikeouts than I had the previous year in just a little more than 16 games. That was aggravating, especially given the Yankees’ emphasis on not wasting at-bats and having good plate discipline. (The image of Trey Hillman shouting and the rest of us standing butt naked in the showers was something I couldn’t unsee.) I also had to make adjustments behind the plate to give my ankle as much of a rest as I could, going down on my left knee a lot more between pitches or when I tossed the ball back to the mound.

  Having to think about every movement was mentally exhausting sometimes. Fortunately, Bob Melvin was still around to help me with the finer points of handling the staff. Also, Guillermo “Willie” Hernández was on that club. A Puerto Rican veteran player who was 40 that year and had been in pro ball since 1975, he was a huge help to me. Out of the 108 games I participated in, I caught 93, so I still felt like I was falling behind in terms of experience. Being on the bench and sometimes in the bullpen with guys like Willie and Bob nearly made up for it. In fact, there were times when I felt like maybe the Yankees were trying to cram too much game experience into me. At one point in July I’d caught 11 games in a row, including the front end of a doubleheader. Between games, Bill Evers, our manager, came to me and said, “You ready to go again?”

  I looked at him. By this point my left calf was still not its normal size. I thought I was back at the pool with my dad, except Bill didn’t have a cigar in his mouth.

  I told him about the 11 games in a row and suggested that DH seemed like it would be fine for me.

  “No, no. You’ve got to get tougher. This will be good for you.”

  Oscar Acosta was our pitching coach, a great guy and a tough SOB who rode bulls in the off-season. He stuck up for me and said, “He’s tough enough. He just caught eleven straight days. That’s enough.”

  Oscar was like that. He had our backs, but he was also really hard on guys too. Pitchers didn’t like coming to Columbus on their rehab assignments because he drove them pretty hard, telling them that if they couldn’t throw as hard or as long as they wanted, then they had to keep the rest of their bodies in shape.

  I didn’t catch that game, but apparently, no matter how much I worried about not getting enough experience, I was getting enough: I managed to cut down my passed balls to 14 and I threw out 32 percent of the runners who tried stealing on me. Just for comparison purposes, I would have finished third in the entire major leagues in 2014 with that caught stealing percentage. As uncomfortable as I was at the plate early in the year, I hit my stride again by midseason and wound up being named to the International League All-Star squad.

  The last day of August we had a doubleheader in Toledo.
Bill Evers came up to me before the first game and said, “You’re not playing today.”

  “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  “You heard me. You’re not playing. In fact, pack your stuff and get on out of here.” He couldn’t control himself any longer and started to smile. “Congratulations. You’re going to New York. You need to get on a plane ASAP.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I ran back into the clubhouse, and there was Derek stuffing things into his bags.

  “We’re going to New York,” Derek said. His words conveyed his usual dry, low-key, “everything’s cool” attitude. But I could see the look in his eyes. He was pumped to be getting another opportunity to go play in the Stadium. As I was about to learn, once you get to that level, you never, ever want to go back down again.

  Derek Jeter and I had gotten closer as the year went on. We had a similar approach to the game, the same drive, and we sensed that about one another. Hanging out together, going to meals, watching movies, talking about sports, something just seemed to click between us, and now here we were going up to New York together. It didn’t matter why at that point, but I eventually was told that by being brought up before the roster expanded, I’d be eligible to play in the postseason. Buck Showalter wanted a third catcher on the roster so he could use one of the three of us as a pinch hitter and still have a catcher in reserve.

  The rest of that day is just a swirl of images of car rides, airports, taxi rides, and arriving at Yankee Stadium. I’d been there before of course, as a kid, but nothing—and I mean nothing—can prepare you for the difference between looking down at the field and looking up from it into the stands. I was about to take the field for the first time as a big leaguer, and I was a little hesitant to do this. I stood for a few seconds in front of Thurman Munson’s locker. I thought of how much he had meant to the teams he played for and to the game itself. I was now playing the same position he had, but I knew I was not in his league yet. Few catchers ever are.