Twins’ Rosario was always an early overachiever
Eddie Rosario is among the blessed few — one of 30 players in history to hit the first pitch they ever saw in the major leagues out of the park.
“My first home run? I called it. I called it way before, before getting to The Show,” Rosario said.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Rosario, who will start in left field for the Minnesota Twins on Opening Day for the third straight season, was a precocious child. He began playing baseball 22 years ago, at age 4.
“I already knew how to swing a bat,” Rosario said in Spanish in an interview with La Vida Baseball at the Twins’ spring training complex in Fort Myers, Fla. “I knew how to field a ball. I knew baseball stuff at age 4.”
Rosario was raised in Guayama, a town in central Puerto Rico that used to be the home of the Brujos, one of the founding teams of the island’s winter league and winners of the first two championships, way back in 1937-38 and 1938-39.
Those “Warlocks” could have cast a spell on any major league team. Their lineups boasted Negro League legends like Satchel Paige, Juan “Tetelo” Vargas (Dominican Republic) and Alejandro Oms (Cuba); as well as a legend who did not play in the States, Pedro “Perucho” Cepeda, father of future Puerto Rican Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda.
Rosario’s father, Eddie Sr., never made it that far, instead fulfilling his passion for the game in Clase A, the island-wide amateur league that is the oldest organized baseball in Puerto Rico. Every Sunday, the father would go play, taking his gifted child along with him.
Bats left, throws right
“I would always have a bat and a ball and be playing all the time,” Rosario said. “My dad gave me a bat, I started swinging it. From then on, he supported my baseball.”
Little Eddie learned to hit left-handed and throw righty while playing every position. He grew up to be 6-foot-1, turning into a good-hitting outfielder with outstanding bat speed and plate coverage. He signed with the Twins for $200,000 after being drafted in the fourth round of the 2010 draft.
His path to the majors, however, was not without a hiccup. After playing in three different levels in 2013, Rosario received a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s recreational drug policy.
Rosario served his suspension at the start of the 2014 season and survived a rocky campaign to finish the year with the Double-A New Britain (Conn.) Rock Cats. He was promoted to the Triple-A Rochester (N.Y.) Red Wings for the start of the following season.
It took only a month before the Twins called him up. Two days later, on May 6, 2015, to be exact, manager Paul Molitor gave Rosario his long-awaited break. The kid from Guayama hit eighth and started in right field.
‘I got this guy’
Does he remember the day?
“Of course I do,” Rosario said immediately.
It was a blustery Wednesday night at home in Target Field against the Oakland A’s. Official attendance was only 18,866, but that’s not counting the hundreds of family, friends and neighbors listening and watching the game back home.
Rosario did not get a chance to make a play in the outfield in the first three innings. He was still untested in the major leagues when he came to bat to open the bottom of the third.
Does he remember the pitcher?
“Of course I do,” Rosario said again. “A lefty, [Scott] Kazmir. He was an All-Star back then. I know that I studied him all night [the day before]. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with Dad and Mom in the room and I said, ‘I got this guy. I know what he’s going to throw.’”
The season before, Kazmir had earned his third All-Star selection, winning a career-high 15 games with a 3.55 ERA. When healthy, Kazmir threw hard and challenged hitters. His first pitch was exactly what Rosario expected.
“He threw a high fastball,” Rosario said. “It seemed like a cutter. I tried to make perfect contact. The ball seemed the size of a melon, it really did.”
Even his parents knew
Instead of breaking up into pieces, the ball left the park in a hurry, an opposite-field line drive that cut through the wind. Rosario’s parents, Eddie Sr. and María, were in the stands. They, too, had called it.
“They knew that it was going to be my moment,” Rosario said. “That’s why they had their phones in their hands. They also were waiting for that moment.”
First pitch. First swing. First home run. Every kid’s dream. Rosario rounded the bases at a measured pace, like he had done this before.
“It played out at normal speed,” he said. “It didn’t happen too quickly or too slowly.”
“I felt very proud. I really did,” Rosario added. “I really wanted to make that moment mine. I wanted it so much that I made it happen. I was in such control for those 10 seconds; that was really exciting to have that feeling.”
By coincidence, the last three to accomplish this feat are Latino — the Cubs’ Willson Contreras in 2016, Rosario and the Pirates Starling Marte in 2012. Interestingly, none of the 30 players in this exclusive club are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. But seven are Latino, including the first one, Cuban shortstop Dagoberto “Bert” Campaneris, who did it when he debuted with the Kansas City Athletics in 1964. Rosario can claim to be the only Puerto Rican.
Unmatched feat
Rosario, meanwhile, rode his high all through his rookie season. He hit .267 with 13 home runs in 122 games while leading the major leagues with 15 triples, finishing sixth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. After a slight sophomore slump in 2016, he broke out with a vengeance last season.
He hit 6-for-19 in the World Baseball Classic with two doubles, a triple and five RBI in six games. He followed up in the regular season by hitting .290 and slugging .507 with 27 home runs, 33 doubles and 78 RBI, helping propel the Twins to the playoffs for the first time since 2010.
Rosario had a slow start this spring because of a strained triceps. He’s hoping for an encore of his 2017 performance, partly to keep up with the rest of a star-studded new generation from Puerto Rico; namely, Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Javy Báez, Edwin “Sugar” Díaz and Enrique “Kiké” Hernández. That’s heady company.
But none of them, no matter how many All-Star selections or World Series rings they earn, will ever match Rosario’s feat — that of hitting the first pitch of their career for a home run. A called one, no less. Talk about being blessed.
Featured Image: Hannah Foslien / Getty Images Sport