Arozarena’s success made in Mexico
Rays’ ALCS MVP was born in Cuba, but credits his adopted homeland
SAN DIEGO— Randy Arozarena was born in Arroyos de Mantua, a small town on the northwest coast of Cuba, a 41⁄ 2- hour drive from Havana. He has fond memories of dancing in the streets and playing soccer, his first love, with his brothers and his friends. He remembers his father watching him play for the Vegueros de Pinar del Rio, a professional Cuban baseball team. His nickname is El Cohete Cubano (The Cuban Rocket).
Make no mistake, Arozarena is Cuban. But deep down, his heart has become intertwined with the country only 30 minutes away from San Diego’s Petco Park, where he powered the Tampa Bay Rays to the World Series with four home runs, earning MVP honours in the AL Championship Series.
Mexico is where Arozarena, 25, found a home after fleeing Cuba on a small boat five years ago, where his daughter was born two years ago and where he started a journey that vaulted him to the major leagues last year. And one day, he hopes to wear the country’s uniform in international competitions.
“I feel like I represent Mexico,” he said in Spanish during a recent interview. “I have a daughter in Mexico, and I’d do it in honour of her and for the part of my career that I spent in Mexico and for all the friends I’ve made in Mexico.”
Arozarena’s experience is familiar to many of his fellow Cuban-born players in Major League Baseball. The island is their homeland, but dozens have escaped the communist country to chase their dreams, often putting their lives in the hands of smugglers or taking harrowing boat rides.
After Arozarena said his father died unexpectedly of an allergic reaction to shellfish in 2014 and he began feeling alienated by his team in Cuba — he was left off Pinar del Rio’s roster for the 2015 Caribbean Series in Puerto Rico despite hitting .291 as officials feared he might defect — he decided that he needed to leave to provide for his mother and two younger brothers.
So in June 2015, Arozarena said, he took an eight-hour boat ride and saw waves over four metres en route to Isla Mujeres, just off the coast from Cancun. Defecting Cuban baseball players must establish residency in a third country before they can be cleared by the U.S. government and sign as free agents with an MLB team. From where Arozarena lived in Cuba, Mexico was the shortest journey.
The list of people he knew in Mexico upon his arrival: “No one.”
Through an agent, Arozarena was eventually connected to Guillermo Armenta, then a scout for the MLB Scouting Bureau who also oversaw player development for the Toros de Tijuana of the Mexican professional baseball league.
The first time Armenta worked with Arozarena, in Merida — the largest city on the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from where Arozarena first arrived — he saw the athletic potential. Armenta said a skinny Arozarena first ran the 60-yard dash in 6.9 seconds, as fast as an average major league player. He eventually improved his time to 6.38 seconds.
“He ran like a lighting bolt,” Armenta said.
After being asked to train Arozarena a few more times, Armenta convinced him that he should come to Tijuana to develop at the Toros’ academy, which had sent other prospects to Major League organizations.
At the academy, Armenta said, Arozarena had so little to his name that he shared cleats and batting gloves with another prospect during workouts. He grew frustrated as MLB teams scouted him and gave him looks in private workouts but declined to sign him.
After struggling in his brief Mexican League debut with the Toros — five games in 2016 — Arozarena starred for their feeder team, the Toritos, winning a batting and stolen bases title, and refining his power stroke. The St. Louis Cardinals signed him to a $1.25-million (U.S.) contract.
Arozarena made his major league debut with St. Louis on Aug. 14, 2019, and hit .300 in 20 at bats over 19 games. Tantalized by Arozarena’s talent, the Rays traded for him, coughing up their top pitching prospect at the time.
His Rays debut this year was delayed until Aug. 30 because of a positive coronavirus test. While isolating, he said, he loaded up on chicken and rice — all he knew how to make — and did 300 pushups a day. And although he wasn’t an everyday player upon his return, he earned regular duties by hitting .281 with seven home runs in only 23 games.
“He came here without anything that he has now,” Armenta said from Tijuana. “But look at him now. That’s Randy.”
In the post-season, Arozarena has been by far the best hitter in the Rays’ offence. He blasted three home runs in five games to help topple the Yankees in the American League Division Series. And in a celebratory dance competition set to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” after Tampa Bay won the series, Arozarena beat his teammate Brett Phillips by busting out the moves — including spinning on his head — that he used to do with his brothers and friends back in Cuba. It was the type of joy that has come to exemplify the Rays and Arozarena this post-season.
“Life is too short,” he said.
“And that’s what how we do it: enjoying every moment that life brings.”
In the AL Championship Series against the Houston Astros, Arozarena crushed four more home runs. His seven post-season home runs broke the record for the most by a rookie in major league history, one more than Evan Longoria’s mark with the Rays in 2008, the last time Tampa Bay had advanced this far.
“Everybody is just in awe every time he steps into the box,” Rays catcher Mike Zunino said of Arozarena. Rays manager Kevin Cash said Arozarena’s accomplishments were more impressive given that he had no previous experience against many of the pitchers.
Arozarena wouldn’t be doing this if not for his formative time in Mexico. At the Toros’ academy, he grew not only as a player but as a person. Teammates and staff members there helped him buy his first cellphone and open social media accounts (he is now active on Instagram and hosts Facebook chats with fans).
Before the Rays swept Toronto in the best-of-three first round of the 2020 playoffs, Arozarena posed for a photo with a friend he hadn’t seen since their days together at the Toros’ academy: Alejandro Kirk, a Mexican catcher with the Toronto Blue Jays.
“He’s Mexican because of his love of the homeland,” Armenta said of Arozarena.
His family is around, too: His brother, Raiko, plays for the Cafetaleros de Chiapas, a thirdtier Mexican soccer team, and his mother makes him Cuban food often — although he still indulges in his favourite Mexican dish, carne asada tacos.
“It’s like living in Cuba,” he said.