Dirtbags Baseball - Long Beach State 49ers

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Tuesday, September 07, 2004

Great Article on Abe Alvarez

This is the beginning of a long, and great, profile article on Abe Alvarez (drafted out of Long Beach State in 2003) on ESPN.com (read the entire article here):

"PORTLAND, Maine -- The national anthem ends. He picks up his hat from the dirt, places it upon his bushy black hair, and deliberately turns the flat-billed cap nearly 45 degrees to the left.

He steps onto the pitchers mound as those who have never met him instantly form opinions.

Probably cocky. Likely arrogant. No doubt he's disrespecting the game.

Based solely on appearance, Abe Alvarez is judged.

But the strangers are wrong.

The 21-year-old minor league pitcher hears the bashing on the radio broadcasts and the heckling from the stands, and he brushes it off like a veteran, seeming almost amused by the ignorant, inaccurate stereotypes.

"I'm not worried about the way I look or the way people look at me," he said. "They probably think I'm weird or some wacko or something, but they're not going to be someone close to me, so it shouldn't matter."

He makes his presence known on the field for the Portland Sea Dogs -- the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox -- and keeps to himself when he steps off it. "A speak-when-spoken-to kind of guy," described one teammate.

So it's not often Alvarez opens up about the poverty he grew up in. The robberies, the food shelters, the dangerous neighborhoods.

Never does he bring up the fact that he became the fastest player in organization history to move from short-season Single-A ball to starting a game in the majors.

And rarely will he bother to give the reason why he wears his hat to the side.

Unless you took time to look past his crooked bill, you would never know Abe Alvarez is legally blind in his left eye.

And you would never know Abe Alvarez.

Only then would you realize that baseball really doesn't need a guy like him.

It needs one on every team..."

posted on 9/07/2004 by Jeff Agnew

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