The switch-hitting Cabrera is among the league's best in batting average, hits, home runs, runs driven in, runs scored and fielding. And at Progressive Field, his No. 13 is beginning to pop up more and more on the backs of fans in the stands.
Chuck Crow, The Plain DealerWith fielding that is reminiscent of Omar Vizquel and plenty of offensive firepower, shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera is a star with the first-place Indians and will start for the American League in the All-Star Game on Tuesday. CLEVELAND, Ohio — Most Sundays, before the Indians take batting practice at Progressive Field, Asdrubal Cabrera can be found tossing slow balls to a knee-high version of himself in the cage.
His 4-year-old son, Meyer, in a Tribe uniform, swings, connects and takes off for first. As the batter rounds second, Cabrera makes his move, slowly tracing the boy's steps on the basepaths, but the little man always beats his dad's outstretched black Rawlings glove with a dusty slide into home.
Cabrera was about the same age, the son of a truck driver and homemaker in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, when he first picked up a baseball bat and glove, thus beginning a chase that has ultimately led to Tuesday night in Phoenix.
There, Cabrera will be introduced for the first time as a Major League Baseball All-Star, joining closer Chris Perez as the only two players from the first-place Indians.
In 3 1/2 years with the Indians -- 2 1/2, really, given that a broken left forearm stunted last season -- Cabrera has gone from emergency fill-in at second base, to starting shortstop, to this.
"Right now, to me," said Emilio Carrasquel, the Seattle Mariners scout who signed him as a teenager, "he's the best shortstop in the big leagues."
Leaguewide, Cabrera isn't yet in the same stratosphere popularitywise as the New York Yankees' Derek Jeter, who opted out of the All-Star Game to rest an injury after fans voted to start him at short for the American League. But in Cleveland, Indians fans have watched Cabrera, who will start in Jeter's absence, lift their team to first place in the AL Central Division for most of the season's first half.
Collectively, the Indians pitching staff is most responsible for the team's stunning start. But among everyday players, Cabrera, who hasn't missed a game this season, has been a game-changer -- both at the plate and in the field.
"He's been money for us this year," said manager Manny Acta. "This guy has done everything for us. He's won a game with a squeeze [bunt], a single, a double, a triple, a homer and saved a ton of runs for us defensively. He has carried this ball club offensively at times when some of our main guys haven't been hitting their strides."
The switch-hitting Cabrera, who turns 26 in November, is among the league's best in batting average, hits, home runs, runs driven in, runs scored and fielding.
In the home ballpark, where Travis Hafner, Carlos Santana and especially Grady Sizemore jerseys dominate the grandstands, Cabrera's name and number 13 -- which carries special significance in his homeland -- are cropping up this season. Fans are swept up.
"Because he's one of the best shortstops," gushed 8-year-old Alex Ulloa, in the blue Cabrera T-shirt he picked up two weeks ago.
Sizemore was his favorite, but the Cleveland third-grader's allegiance shifted with Cabrera's first-half dramatics.
"Home runs, behind his back, falling down and throwing it," he said after spinning through the turnstiles with his grandpa for last Tuesday's Tribe-Yankees game.
Teammates call him "Cabby" and describe him as quiet, humble and understated. He and his wife, Lismar, met in school in Venezuela and married in 2007. He has snapshots of Meyer and he and Lismar's 12-week-old daughter, Ashley, in his locker. His parents, Asdrubal and Zunilde, stay with them and the kids in Cleveland for a few months of the season. And his favorite dish, prepared by either his wife or mom, is rice with steak and beans.
Asdrubal Cabrera file
PD
Position: Indians All-Star shortstop.
Height/Weight: 6-0, 180.
Bats: Both.
Throws: Right.
Born: Nov. 13,1985 in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela.
Family: Married to Lismar; they met in school in Venezuela and have a son, Meyer, 4, and a daughter, Ashley, 12 weeks.
Bat: 331/2-inch, 32-ounce Louisville Slugger model C271S.
Glove: Rawlings PRO S120C.
On discovering power in his swing this season: "This year in spring training, O.C. (Orlando Cabrera), he saw me in (batting practice) and said, 'Hey, kid, you've got a problem. Don't be afraid to hit a homer some time,' and I said, 'Alright.' O.C. said, 'Not every time, it depends on the situation, how the game is going. Don't try to do too much, just hit the ball hard,' and that's what I'm doing right now."
Hobbies: Basketball. His father was a talented basketball player in Venezuela. Baseball was the sport of choice on his mother's side. ... And not watching baseball on television. Growing up, his dad would try to get him to sit and watch Major League games with him. "I said, I don't want to see it, I just want to play."
What they're saying about him:
APManny Acta
"Everybody in baseball realizes how good this guy is. He hasn't even entered his prime yet." -- Indians manager Manny Acta.
"I just think he's matured. I think he has a better idea of what he wants to do at the plate, defensively." -- New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi.
"This kid can be a great RBI man. I think his defense is going to be better because he's going to know the league better." -- Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.
"We've got a lot of sinkerballers on the staff and, obviously, with him back there, it feels pretty good. It's fun to watch." -- Indians reliever Joe Smith, the recipient of two Cabrera fielding gems this season.
"He's a guy who wants to learn, but at the same time is proud of what he knows and the game that he can play." -- Indians second-baseman Orlando Cabrera and Asdrubal Cabrera's unofficial mentor.
"No, he's a momma's boy." -- Orlando Cabrera, on whether his teammate is handy in the kitchen.
--Bill Lubinger
Shortstop legacy
PDOmar Vizquel
The Indians Asdrubal Cabrera continues a legacy of outstanding Venezuelan shortstops -- and the jersey No. 13:
No. 17 Chico Carrasquel (1950-59 with Chicago White Sox/Indians/Kansas City Athletics/Baltimore); four-time All-Star.
No. 11 Luis Aparicio (1956-73 with Chicago White Sox/Baltimore/White Sox again/Boston); 10-time All-Star, nine-time Gold Glove winner, Hall of Fame.
No. 13 Dave Concepcion (1970-88 with Cincinnati); nine-time All-Star, five-time Gold Glove winner.
No. 13 Ozzie Guillen (1985-2000 with Chicago White Sox/Baltimore/Atlanta/Tampa Bay) (current White Sox manager); three-time All-Star, one-time Gold Glove winner.
No. 13 and 11 Omar Vizquel (1989-still active with Seattle/Indians/San Francisco/Texas/Chicago White Sox); three-time All-Star, 11-time Gold Glove winner.
-- Bill Lubinger
"He's a simple guy," said second baseman Orlando Cabrera, who isn't related but counsels him like an older brother. "Doesn't need too much to be happy."
Besides the script tattoo of his children's names on his left forearm, the shortstop isn't flashy -- except when filling highlight reels with his glove.
Fans, teammates and the media still marvel at two plays in particular this season.
In late May against the Chicago White Sox, former Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel lined the ball off reliever Joe Smith's glove. Cabrera, moving toward second on the hit, lunged back the opposite direction, barehanded the ball and tossed it behind his back to start a double play.
And last month against visiting Pittsburgh -- again with Smith on the mound -- Cabrera pulled off an incredible bare-handed stab of a one-hopper, turning in one motion to throw out the runner from deep in the hole -- the area near the edge of the outfield grass between second and third. It was the kind of play Vizquel, the master of barehanded stabs, would routinely make.
"That one," said Smith, the benefactor of both gems, "I just kind of stopped and stared at him and waited for him to turn and look at me and I'm like, 'What the hell was that?' "
In his brief major-league career, Cabrera already has been involved in three triple plays, including one in the third game this season and in 2008, when he turned the 14th unassisted triple play in baseball history.
Cabrera, whose $2.025 million contract this season ranks 20th among major-league shortstops, isn't eligible for free agency until after the 2013 season. That's important in a city where baseball fans are painfully accustomed to seeing the team's stars in their prime bolt for more money.
By comparison, Jeter is making $14.7 million this season and Detroit's Jhonny Peralta, whom Cabrera replaced at short for the Indians, is paid $5.25 million.
If the 6-foot, 180-pound Cabrera was somehow gliding below the radar before this season, he isn't anymore.
"Just about every manager in our division who has seen him enough raves about his abilities," Acta said. "Some people that are not in our division have come up to me and compared him, with due respect, to the Omar Vizquel type of player. I won't take it that far. Omar is a sure Hall of Famer to me, but Cabrera just has a street savvy and instincts that you just can't teach."
Asdrubal, dad make a deal
Cabrera was 15, 16 maybe, when he told his father he wanted to give professional baseball a shot. He had followed Vizquel's career growing up. He believed he was good enough to get signed and make the major leagues.
The idea didn't go over well. His dad wanted him to finish school first. Cabrera pushed the issue.
"He told me: 'I'm going to give you one year, one opportunity. If you sign, good, if you don't, you've got to come back.' I said, 'All right,' and that was the deal we made," Cabrera said in a recent Plain Dealer interview.
Special to PDCabrera is a favorite among Tribe fans, including 8-year-old Alex Ulloa of Cleveland. By then, he was already being watched by major-league scouts. Carrasquel, Seattle's scout in Venezuela, said Cabrera was about 15 when the boy first caught his eye. The kid had good hands, hit the ball consistently and was smart.
"He knew what to do with the ball. He was a little bit ahead of some of the players," recalled Carrasquel, whose bloodlines run to the legends of Venezuelan baseball.
Carrasquel's great-uncle Alejandro Carrasquel became the first Venezuelan-born player to reach the major leagues with the Washington Senators in 1939. And his uncle, Chico Carrasquel, who starred for the Chicago White Sox in the '50s, began a string of All-Star Venezuelan shortstops that continued with the White Sox's Luis Aparicio, Cincinnati's Dave Concepcion, Vizquel and now extends to Cabrera.
Baseball in Venezuela was popularized by American oil workers in the 1920s. Although an anti-U.S. political climate has discouraged most major-league teams from running baseball academies there like they do in the Dominican Republic, countrymen who reach the big leagues are celebrated as heroes.
This season, next to the Dominican, no foreign country has more players (62) on major-league rosters than Venezuela, where talent can be signed as young as 16.
The Seattle bird dog with the baseball pedigree thought he'd found another good one in Cabrera.
"When I saw him the first time," Carrasquel said, "I liked him right away."
Within two months of making the one-year-and-done deal with his dad, Cabrera signed with the Mariners. It was also one month after Vizquel became the most recent Indians shortstop selected for the All-Star Game.
After one season in a Venezuelan summer league, Cabrera was off to the United States, alone at 16, in a foreign land, struggling to learn an unfamiliar language.
"Yeah, that was my tough year, I think, for me," he said.
He leaned on long-distance encouragement from his older brother and parents, especially his dad, whom he considers his best friend.
"He told me, 'Do you like baseball? Stay there and play hard and do what you have to do,' " Cabrera said.
Tribe, Mariners make a huge deal
The Indians entered spring training in 2006 knowing they were thin in middle infielders throughout the organization. With Seattle, Cabrera had made the unusual leap, at age 20, from Class A to AAA, the step below the major leagues.
He was steady but not exceptional. But when his name came up in trade talks with the Mariners, the Indians thought he could eventually be an everyday player. They grabbed him for first baseman Eduardo Perez.
Cabrera said he cried when told of the trade. He didn't know what it meant. His agent assured him it was a good move because Seattle had too many players at his position.
He had worn number 11 since Little League because that's what his older brother wore. But when he joined the Indians, jersey number 13 -- Vizquel's number -- was in his locker. Coincidentally, Vizquel also was acquired in a trade with Seattle.
In Venezuela, shortstops and number 13 are special. It's what Concepcion and Vizquel wore. But the number 13 for Cabrera seemed unlucky at first. With the Indians' AAA team in Buffalo, he struck out eight of his first 16 times up.
But in 2007, after hitting over .300 for AA Akron and AAA Buffalo, the Indians called him up as an extra infielder. Eight days later, he became their starting second baseman. The Tribe won 10 of 13, won the Central Division and came within a step of the World Series. Cabrera was praised by more seasoned teammates for his maturity as an untested rookie in the heat of a playoff run. Fellow Venezuelan Victor Martinez, the former Indians catcher and team leader, took him under his wing.
Entering the following season, second base was Cabrera's to lose -- and he lost it. He was out of shape, struggled at the plate and was sent back down to Buffalo.
"That was a little hard for me," he said. "When you play in the big leagues, you want to stay there. When they sent me down, they told me, 'Hey, go work.' "
He did and was back with the Indians by late July. He said at the time, he had learned to relax more at the plate.
By May 2009, Cabrera had established himself as the team's starting shortstop, hitting .308, playing sound defense and providing a valuable piece for the club to build around.
This season, with a healed body and encouragement from Orlando Cabrera during spring training, Asdrubal has discovered newfound power at the plate. His 14 home runs this season are four fewer than his career total of 18.
"He's having an unbelievable year," said Jeter, the Yankees' future Hall of Famer. "It seems like -- how old is he now? -- what you want to see with young guys as they get older and they mature and continue to play, you want to see improvements, and the improvements he's made, especially this year, are pretty impressive."
Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, another Venezuelan-born shortstop who wore number 13, considers the 25-year-old Cabrera one of the best at the position in the American League, with the potent combination of speed, power and the ability to hit from either side of the plate.
"One of the biggest reasons the Cleveland Indians are what they are," Guillen said, "is because of Asdrubal."
It's been nearly a decade since Cabrera's father agreed to give him one year to pursue a professional baseball career or return to school. On Tuesday, Cabrera's parents will watch their son play with the best in the world, chosen for the All-Star Game by his peers -- the ultimate tribute.
Cabrera says he's pretty excited about it. He considers the honor a big deal. It's even bigger for his father.
"He was really happy," he said. "He was almost crying when I told him."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: blubinger@plaind.com, 216-999-5531