Dancing in the kitchen, training on the diamond
To delight of brother Carlos, JC Correa is shining for Alvin Community College
A late January cold spell bundled up dozens of fans at this season’s Alvin Community College baseball opener. The Dolphins seldom attract major league talent, but an Astros superstar attended the game.
The subdued conditions helped him lie low in a black hoodie and baggy winter attire. For one half-inning.
Then, before the bottom of the first, Carlos Correa climbed atop a picnic table, cupped his hand to his mouth, and bayed for the Dolphins’ leadoff man: his brother, Jean Carlos Correa, who goes by JC.
Although the brothers have never competed together because of their age gap — Carlos is 22; JC is 18 — living one hour apart has them closer than they have been since turning double plays on a hardscrabble field in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico.
The few times Astros and Dolphins home games have not conflicted, Carlos has cheered on JC, a power-hitting freshman who starts at second base.
“¡Dale galleta!” Carlos yells. Crush the ball.
“¡Ponle piquete!” he adds. Swing with swagger.
He also laughed and pointed from the stands when JC did a face-plant while rounding second base on what would have been a triple.
“When I looked up from second, he was dying,” JC said, smiling about the embarrassment.
JC is the best hitter for the Dolphins, who will face Navaro College in the Region XIV postseason tournament that begins Saturday at AirHog Stadium in Grand Prairie. He began at leadoff because of his plate discipline, then quickly belted his way into the three hole.
In 52 games, he has a .344 batting average, an .868 OPS, three home runs, 34 runs scored and 34 runs batted in.
“He’s raking,” Carlos said.
Nine games ago, Carlos, who had slumped, listened to a 20-minute pep talk from JC, who told him to spread his feet more and steady his bat. Carlos has hit .333 since.
The brothers differ in their builds and athleticism. Carlos captivated scouts when he threw 94 mph across the diamond at age 16 and developed into a speedy 6-4 shortstop. JC generously is listed at 5-11. Evaluators —including his brother — say he needs to bulk up and sharpen his fielding.
His hitting prowess is not in question.
“He has a professional approach to attacking the baseball that you don’t see much on a daily basis,” Alvin coach Jason Schreiber said. “He can hit from line to line.”
Strong work ethic
JC’s first home run alerted the conference that he launches fastballs with his metal bat like it’s a trebuchet. The opposing pitcher from Angelina College dropped his head and did not turn around to see the ball soar over a roughly 65-foot-high treetop beyond the left-center field wall. Schreiber estimated it traveled nearly 400 feet.
Assistant coach Mike Partida recruited JC at a Perfect Game tournament in Jupiter, Fla. He credits JC, who is the only 18-yearold on the team, for learning the work ethic required to make the majors from his older brother.
As kids growing up in the fishing village of Barrio Velazquez, Carlos and JC walked to an all-dirt ball field. When tropical storms swelled the nearby Coamo River, floods sent the Correas to higher ground. JC remembers returning to find the ball field looked “like a lake.”
JC trained in lock step with Carlos. Dozens of double plays. Hundreds of swings. Almost every day.
Carlos joined a bilingual school in the third grade and as a teen answered myriad questions from his parents impersonating media. The prodigy cycle repeated with JC.
As men, they can be staid in discussing athletics. Astros victories and losses sound indistinguishable in Carlos’ postgame interviews. JC does not indulge in alcohol or women, shaken by the thought of running outside his base path.
They can, however, be goofy when revealing their true selves.
“We like to dance,” JC said.
The boys would return to their modest home, permeated by the smoky aroma of ham that their mother, Sandybel, 38, was rendering for her unmatched arroz con habichuelas. Salsa music played. The peppy horns and clave of Frankie Ruiz inspired Carlos to sing, eyes closed, into a mop handle as he wiped the floor.
“We’d take five hours to clean the house,” JC said.
Family members nicknamed JC “Yankee” as a nod to his Babe Ruthian clout after — they swear — he hit 103 home runs at age 6.
Over time, his body proved more apt for line drives. JC’s stature epitomized the unfair comparison to Carlos that loomed over his own emergence in Puerto Rico, where the Correas enthrall the public like a royal family.
“We always knew Yankee was going to have a lot of pressure,” Sandybel said, according to a family friend who translated her Spanish to English.
Long-term plan
She and Carlos Sr., 40, spent 13 years obsessively, at times desperately, grooming Carlos for a career they hoped would be lucrative. Carlos Sr. worked three jobs a day — construction, contracting and park maintenance — to barely afford the boys’ baseball pursuits. Sandybel worked part-time at a grocery store. The family did not have a fallback if Carlos did not become great.
Now, Mom and Dad have encouraged JC that he can reach the major leagues at his own pace.
“There’s no rush like it was with Javy,” Sandybel said.
While Carlos had banked on a signing bonus and endorsements coming through, JC is enjoying a relaxed college life in suburban Texas. He is more amused than culture shocked. He had never seen a squirrel or any woodland rodentia before.
“They’re cute,” he said, “but I prefer iguanas.”
He gaped at men and women in western attire.
“I had never seen people dressing like cowboys,” he said with eyes wide. “In Puerto Rico, we just dress normal.”
He donned a hat-to-boot cowboy outfit to attend his first rodeo.
The best benefit of JC’s signing with Alvin is it spurred the rest of the family, which includes 8-yearold sister Leibysand, to move into Carlos’ sizable house last July.
Carlos’ plush closet stunned his mother. It is larger than the room with a bunk bed the brothers shared in Barrio Velazquez. Now they play video games on a 75-inch television.
Home cooking
Carlos takes advantage of the luxurious setup more than his parents. He has trundled downstairs one morning in gray sweats, hugged and kissed his mother on the cheek, and groggily said: “Mommy, I want pancakes.”
Sandybel dutifully obliges. Carlos Sr. tosses JC batting practice three afternoons a week.
After nearly two decades of working four jobs and raising three children on the prayer that two boys could make it in baseball, Carlos Sr. and Sandybel are full-time fans. Multiple times they have attended an Astros game and a Dolphins doubleheader the same day.
“It’s like a novella dream,” Sandybel said.
The current cuddly dynamic likely will last only one more year, maybe two if JC transfers to a Division I program. National cross-checkers have attended JC’s games, a validation that he could get selected in the MLB amateur draft.
Carlos Sr. and Sandybel devoted themselves to Carlos for so long. They have pledged to follow JC next.
“Now,” Sandybel said, “it’s Yankee’s turn.”