Olympic medalist fulfills MLB dream, too
He has lived the dream not once but twice, first on a medal stand, again in the batter’s box, overcoming no shortage of barriers physical and implied.
Yet even Eddy Alvarez catches himself wondering sometimes.
“We all deal with our inner pessimist,” he said last week from the sanctum of the Marlins’ visiting clubhouse area in Baltimore. “We just try to find as much positivity as we can find. Positive thinking creates positive results.”
Sometimes it turns literal dreams into reality.
Alvarez made his major league debut on Aug. 5 at an unlikely age – 30 – and under unlikely circumstances. To be sure, the novel coronavirus that has ravaged the globe and infected 17 Marlins created a roster opening that he filled.
But the path taken and determination to complete it tell a story of a young man who seems to believe anything is possible.
What other major leaguer took a significant detour from the sport to try his hand at short-track speedskating, gave that up to give his barking, surgically repaired patellar tendons a break, only to return and claim a silver medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics?
How many others would go from medal stand to a bus ticket, signing as an undrafted free agent with the White Sox, and still press on even after getting mired in low Class A ball at age 25?
It would be easier to say Alvarez ignored the odds, existed in a state of blissful ignorance and knew his time would come.
No, he was quite aware of how his age would be viewed in a sport that prioritizes the young even more now than ever.
“It’s the truth behind the system,” Alvarez said on a video call Aug. 6. “And as much crap as it is, age is a huge obstacle for a lot of guys in this game. But I’ve always considered myself a very young athlete.
JULIO CORTEZ/AP track, long track, whatever.
He was skating at an international level by the time he was out of high school yet failed to qualify for the 2010 Games in Vancouver. By then his knees were failing and baseball was looking better.
At this key juncture, the support of officials in both sports proved crucial.
He found allies within US Speedskating who wrote him a letter of residency while he was living near its training center in Salt Lake City that enabled him to restart his baseball career at a community college there. At that point, Alvarez was quite literally an athlete on parallel tracks, aiming for Sochi while mashing for Salt Lake Community College.
“The skating world has been nothing but supportive to me, all the way through the journey,” he says, “ever since I sat down with them and explained my goals and needs. I’ve been very blessed to have an organization like that having my back.”
Their faith paid off. Alvarez was part of a 5,000-meter relay team that claimed silver in Sochi, 0.27 seconds behind the Russians.
The climb in baseball would be steeper. Alvarez dominated in his first full year in the minors, stealing 53 bases and producing a .834 OPS in 2015. But he was more than three years older than the average player in the low Class A Midwest League, where he spent most of that year.
A penchant for getting on base – Alvarez’s career on-base percentage in the minors is .375 – pushed him to Class AAA, but he never cracked the White Sox’s 40-man roster before the Marlins purchased him at the end of spring training in 2019.
He earned a non-roster invite to major league spring training, a particularly crucial development in this year. First off, he caught the eye of manager Don Mattingly with his advanced approach at the plate and athleticism.