Engine always on, as is drive to learn
For A’s, Laureano’s fiery image is belied by studious approach
When thinking of Ramón Laureano, fans might picture a goforbroke, fiery player, particularly after the A’s center fielder charged the Astros dugout earlier this month.
In reality, Laureano is kind of Zen. He’s got a lot verve in his game, but mentally, he tries to stay as centered as possible.
“You have to stay in the present,” Laureano said by phone during his fourgame suspension, which he received for his spat with the Astros. “I found that on my own, in baseball and in life. You can’t get too far ahead of yourself, you can’t be emotional, you have to think about the situation. You have to be evenkeel all the time. Baseball has taught me a lot — and it’s continuing to do that.”
Laureano educated himself about the sport., which
never was a family interest. His parents, Nina and Ramón, a banker, don’t have athletic backgrounds. But when Laureano was 7 or 8, his godfather, Lionel Senior, took him to his first game — Tigres del Licey were playing in the Dominican Winter League — and Laureano fell head over heels.
“I just was in love with it,” he said. “I would get all the stats in a book, and read them, my godfather gave me baseball cards as a birthday gift.”
At 13, Laureano decided he wanted to be a baseball player. His parents didn’t know much about it, but they stood firmly behind their only child. “I think they were like that advertisement they have now — ‘Just let the kids play.’ That was it. Let him play,” Laureano said. “My dad told me he would always support me. He knew that was my dream from that day on.”
There was only one problem: “I wasn’t very good,” Laureano said. “You need to have some talent — and my only talent was throwing.”
That never was going to lead to much in the Dominican, so the family began to investigate scholarship opportunities in the U.S. One offer came in at the last second — could Laureano, on short notice, start during the second semester? “It was lifechanging, and so fast,” Laureano said.
“This decision was not easy on our little family, but we decided to let him pursue his dreams without letting ourselves be carried away by Ramón’s emotion, energy and enthusiasm,” Nina Laureano said, with Laureano’s aunt, Angela “Alla” Vinas, interpreting. “As parents and adults, we had to analyze the risks and advantages of this project. Ramón understood that if he stayed in our country, he would never have the opportunity to be signed at 16 years old. He envisioned this opportunity to prepare him and to achieve and work hard for his dream.”
The 15yearold Laureano arrived at Upper Room Christian School on Long Island speaking no English. That did nothing to deter him. “They said they’d give me English class after school, but they didn’t, so I just talked to anybody, I was just me,” he said, adding with a laugh, “You can’t be scared of saying something wrong, and I wasn’t — I guess that still translates to now. I was able to have a conversation three months later, a normal conversation with anyone.”
In his junior year, though, Laureano nearly gave up and went home, frustrated with, among other things, the cold and snow that was keeping him from the baseball field. He had purchased a plane ticket, but at 3 a.m. on the day of the flight he called his father and said he’d changed his mind.
“It was tough, but something was telling me in the back of my head, ‘This is going to pay off big,’ and I knew I had to keep rolling with it,” Laureano said.
As a senior in 2012, Laureano drew some juniorcollege interest, including from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College, whose recruiter, Jon Ubbenga, was tasked with finding a pitcher for the program. While scouting summer ball in New York, Ubbenga stumbled across Laureano and offered him a full ride on the spot.
Laureano accepted the next day.
“It was one of quickest commitments I’ve ever gotten,” said Ubbenga, now the recruiting coordinator at Tarleton State in Texas.
The only problem: Laureano wasn’t a pitcher, something Ubbenga admittedly fudged when talking to Northeastern Oklahoma A&M coach Roger Ward.
“All I told John was, ‘Go find us another arm.’ He said, ‘Hey I’m going to see a guy tonight, everyone says he throws 93,’ and I said, if you like him, offer him a full ride,’ ” Ward said. “Jon told me, ‘Oh, and he can hit too.’ I said, ‘OK — but can he pitch?’ And Jon said yes.
“He lied to me. Ramon pitched twice in two years for us because the arm was strong, but it was not accurate. He was all over the place and way too emotional. You can’t run like a rhinoceros when you’re on the mound and we all know how hard Ramon plays the game.”
Laureano blossomed as a hitter, though, and his work ethic blew away the coaching staff.
The first question he asked Ward was, “Where’s the batting cage?” and he further endeared himself to the team with his hardcharging play, once flipping over the rightfield wall and into the bullpen going after a drive. “It wasn’t a catchable ball, but that wasn’t going to stop Ramón,” Ward said. “There is no option to fail, that’s how he looked at life every day. This is all he wanted to do. He’s not 6foot5, he’s not a prototypical high draft guy, so it was, ‘I’ll show how hard I work and what a good teammate I am and I will find a way to make people like me.’ ”
Ricky Rivera, a college teammate who is now a minorleague coach with the Astros, is Laureano’s best friend, and he credits Laureano’s parents for his determination and drive.
“They’re super hard working, they do things the right way, there are no shortcuts, and that’s exactly what Ramón represents,” Rivera said. “He is very much in a straight line; he’s not going to halfass anything.”
Rivera also knows Laureano’s friendly, chatty side well. It was on full display the first time they met as Laureano continued to talk with anyone who wandered by. “He was sitting in the dorm lobby, where no one hangs out, and he was drinking coffee and welcoming everyone,” Rivera said. “‘Hey, guys! Hey, guys!’ ”
Bigleague teams came around in 2014 because the team had two quality starters, Jake Jewell (now with the Giants), and Dean Deetz. When Deetz snared a tryout with the Astros, Laureano, always eager to snatch every opportunity, finagled a way to join him.
“I texted him and was like, ‘Why are you doing workouts? Why am I not there?’ I told him to text the scout to invite me and they said come to Houston and that was it,” Laureano said. “I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of my passion for the game, that was all.”
The Astros were impressed, and they took Laureano in the 16th round in 2014. Again, he leaped right in. “He didn’t have an agent or adviser, and I texted him and asked what they’d say moneywise and he said, ‘I already signed,’ ” Ubbenga said. “He probably left a lot of money on the table, but he said, ‘I don’t care, I just want to get out there and hustle and learn.’ ”
The learning is ongoing — Laureano pesters everyone, nonstop. A’s manager Bob Melvin jokes about how much time Laureano spends in his office. The thirdyear outfielder has had plenty of extra time on his hands lately in the wake of an Aug. 9 brawl, while Houston coach Alex Cintrón — who Laureano says insulted his mother — was penalized 20 games. Laureano is scheduled to return Tuesday at Arizona, providing another jolt of energy for a team that entered Monday with a 166 record.
“In the Astros organization, they used to call him ‘The Machine,’ because he never stopped,” Rivera said. “It’s off the charts. Now he’s in Oakland, I know Bob says there aren’t enough hours in the day to give Ramón all the information he wants. He wants to be ahead of it at all times.”
Laureano’s mom said that’s just Ramón.
“He has always been a very curious young man,” Nina Laureano said. “Baseball has been the engine of his life, his motivation for many things, that, thank God, he has been achieving. But wanting to be better at what he loves so much is what makes him so inquisitive about baseball.”
“Sometimes the things you learn come up later in your career,” Laureano said. “I’ll remember a conversation I had a year ago about a pitcher and will try something different against him as a result. I’ve had moments in the big leagues when something a coach told me in highA ball has helped.
“I’m so obsessed with the game and I can’t stop asking questions — I get in trouble sometimes, but that’s how I am, I’m just being me.”