Fear was unable to strike out Severino
Catcher cleared mental hurdles to reach majors
SARASOTA, Fla. — For Pedro Severino, the choice was simple: either go back to the baseball field or find somewhere else to live.
The teenager had gotten a late start in the game. His efforts to sign a professional contract when he turned 16 were derailed by a ground ball to the face that made his hopes of being an infielder hard to achieve — he was afraid of the ball. The strikeouts didn’t help either.
“Nothing was easy for me,” Severino said.
Now having solidified himself as the Orioles’ primary catcher in his third season with the club, Severino’s latest challenge might pale in comparison to those in his past. He’s striving to more consistently be the productive two-way catcher he’s shown flashes of being for the Orioles.
But Severino might disagree with the saying that staying in the big leagues is harder than getting there.
Growing up in Villa Altagracia
Basima, about a half-hour outside of the Dominican Republic’s capital city Santo Domingo, Severino was far more focused on what he smilingly calls “normal kid” stuff — borrowing neighbors’ horses to ride to nearby lakes to swim and catching fighting fish.
He’s still that boy at heart. Back home in the offseason, he rides ATVs through mud pits and has horses of his own — the calm, easy-to-ride Galan Jr. and the more rambunctious Paloma. And Severino has coined his own catchphrase — Flow Mantequilla — to embody his own personality: smooth like butter.
But the success that allowed such a life in his late 20s was never a given.
His father, also Pedro, tried to steer his fun-loving son toward a productive future. When he finally found baseball at the age of 12, it was more an avenue to see and be around his friends than a path to prosperity. He was a third baseman at the time who admits a ground ball straight to the nose changed his defensive style to “putting my leg high and let every ground ball pass by straight to left field.”
“I was so scared,” Severino said.
But when he was 14, a team of older players arrived for a game missing their sick catcher. Severino had never caught before but told his coach, Feliz Roa, that he could do it. The mask was certainly a draw.
“When I got the gear on, somebody stole second and I threw him out,” Severino said. “He looked at me like, ‘Hell yeah, I’ve got your position now.’ ”
Severino, though, still saw himself as an infielder. Roa told him if he was afraid of the ball, that wasn’t going to work. So Severino left.
“So what do you want to do?” his father asked him.
“Nothing,” Severino told him.
“Look, you don’t like to go to the school, you don’t like to play baseball, so you have to figure it out because you’re not going to just live with me in my house,” his father told him.
“He did that to me a couple times, every time when I tried to quit baseball,” Severino said. “I just thought about it for like two months and he’d tell me again, ‘Have you figured it out or no? Because now it’s time to leave.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll play the game.’
“I went back to the field, talked to my coach again, and I started working behind the plate for like five months [at] 5 in the morning — every day, 5 in the morning for five months. I was preparing myself really fast, and teams started looking at me.”
Latin American teenagers can sign professional contracts on July 2 of the year they turn 16, with bonuses for top prospects in the millions and plenty more promising players signing for six figures. Severino, though, was small for a catcher at about 160 pounds and said he’d “strike out every single time” he
came to bat.
He remembers a scout with the Cincinnati Reds telling him he was too skinny for them to sign. Another scout told him he doesn’t look like a catcher for the New York Yankees, a knock that stuck with him.
But even as teams made six-figure offers, Severino said his coaches turned them down. He grew frustrated and left again. This time his father’s ultimatum changed: come work with me or it’s time to move out.
Severino’s father bought and disassembled old cars and sold off the parts. His son found it to be overly strenuous labor — “all that stuff is kind of heavy,” he said. But when a teammate told him to come to a showcase with scouts, Severino still resisted.
His father told him to give it one more try. Severino signed with the Washington Nationals in December 2010 for $55,000. He said other clubs offered more if he waited, but he took the offer in hand and began his climb to the big leagues.
Most Latin American prospects will spend a year or two in the Dominican complex leagues learning the game and preparing to come stateside, but Severino’s experience at the Nationals’ complex was a bad illness — and enough promise for the team to send him right to Florida.
His first professional game was in the Gulf Coast League a month before his 17th birthday. Baseball was still a work in progress for him, but the adjustments were harder off the field.
“When they sent me to Florida, no English, different country, I don’t know anybody,” he said.
There was a Burger King across the street from his hotel, he said, and he went there morning, afternoon and night for the same dollar-menu order because it was the only thing he knew to say.
“When they’d see me, they’d give me it right away because they knew what I would buy,” Severino said.
It took until his second season for him to really try American food, and he only really forced himself to because he was losing weight off an already-slight frame. Minorleague teammate Adrián Nieto, a Cubanborn infielder who grew up in South Florida, would bring him to Miami for Latin American food and help him acclimate.
Still, Severino was young wherever he went. He was 18 when he went to play full-season ball at Low-A Hagerstown in 2013. Two years later, he was at Double-A Harrisburg — nearing the point of being a big leaguer but hardly living like one.
For two weeks at the beginning of the season, Severino and a group of Latin American players slept at the field. Eventually, a teammate offered his house for them to stay. Others bought beds, but Severino got the couch.
“That was the dog’s bed, the couch, and I took it from him,” Severino said. “He was so angry.”
He played with a sore neck, and still struggled as a hitter, but he shut down the running game and could manage defensively enough that he was progressing. Severino said Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo came into town at the end of August and asked him who his favorite catcher was.
Yadier Molina, Severino told him. When the GM told Severino that he was going to join the Nationals in St. Louis to see the Cardinals catcher up close and join the big-league team, he didn’t believe him. It wasn’t until his plane was landing and Severino saw his destination outside the window that it hit him.
“I saw the stadium and said, ‘Damn, I’m here? Seriously, I’m here? Wow, I’m in the big leagues now,’ ” he recalled.
The still-skinny Severino found himself in a land of giants and immediately deemed himself too small to play at that level. He took advantage of all the meals provided at a major-league stadium to try to bulk up like Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmermann, spending a month in the big leagues and appearing in just two games.
He spent the next three years between the big leagues and Triple-A Syracuse, slowly coming along as a hitter and waiting for his chance to show what he could do in the majors full time. That chance came in the last week of spring training in 2019, when the Orioles claimed Severino, who was out of minor-league options, on waivers.
He’d been preparing all winter for a fulltime big-league job in Washington or elsewhere, and he knew at the time that a fresh start was best.
At first, he thrived. Severino was batting .288 with a .937 OPS the day after a three-homer game in Texas when he took a foul ball off the mask that chased him from the game June 5. It didn’t land him on the injured list but still halted his production. He hit .230 the rest of the way.
In 2020, Severino had another hot start but fell off after as he tried to chase power. Both he and the Orioles know what it will take to make him the consistent player he wants to be.
Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said he’s “really impressed” with Severino’s progress.
“Offensively, I thought the first 40 games last year he was a force in the middle of our order and really hit the ball hard,” Hyde said. “I felt like he was just putting too much pressure on himself, really, those last 20 games, tried a little bit too hard, doing some things that were a little bit uncharacteristic — some things that, when he first got to us, I felt like those were the at-bats he was taking. [He was] not letting the game come to him offensively and just pressing.”
Severino feels that’s the difference for himself as well. He said he starts thinking too much and doesn’t react to the pitch, bogging himself down.
“I know what pitch they’re going to throw to me and they throw it and I still miss it because my mind is still thinking with the pitch coming,” he said.
Even with the presence of top prospect Adley Rutschman looming, Severino wants to consistently produce so he can be part of a team that is constantly in the playoff mix, like the one he enjoyed with Washington.
“This team has given me an opportunity,” he said. “I want to be one of the parts to play in the playoffs in Baltimore.”
Editor’s note: The Dickeyville profile is one article in The Sun’s City of Neighborhoods series, spotlighting Baltimore communities. Other neighborhoods in the series: Upton, Mount Winans and Stonewood-Pentwood-Winston.
Hidden in a leafy corner of West Baltimore sits a neighborhood steeped in lore with the pedigree to prove it. In the Dickeyville Historic District, every weathered old building bears a tale from days past, when the community was a bustling 19th-century mill town and its residents, the muscle. Now those 137 restored homes, mostly of clapboard or stone, can bring $400,000 in a village seen as both quaint and quiet.
“It has a small-town feel, but with big-city amenities,” says Chris Wharton, 37, who has lived in Dickeyville for eight years amid the picket fences, stone walls, lush gardens and cobbled sidewalks.
“It’s almost like coming to another realm. It’s that charm that keeps folks here.”
Residents, many drawn by the nearby Gwynns Falls Trail and bucolic dam that once powered the textile, wool and paper mills, cherish the town with its retro appearance and familial appeal. Seven years ago, Sarah Long stumbled onto Dickeyville by accident and never left.
”It’s magical; it makes you feel like you’re stepping back in time,” says Long, the Dickeyville Community Association president. “It’s very welcoming. When we were looking to buy our house, not once did someone not stop to ask, ‘Are you my new neighbor?’ “
That cordiality — even in a pandemic — is a given, residents say.
“The town embodies the old ideas of community and keeps them sacred — but it also isn’t stuck in those times,” says Wharton, an environmental scientist. “We’ve embraced change as well.”
History
The town was founded in 1772, but the first mill was built along the Gwynns Falls half a century before. The oldest homes date to 1790. Early owners of the village included the Wethereds, three Quaker brothers who dubbed it Wetheredville. Neutral during the Civil War, the family made cloth of both blue and gray until the Union Army found out and closed the mill.
William Dickey, an Irish immigrant, bought the town in 1871 and gave it his name. Dickey opened a company store, banned alcohol consumption and, at one point, instituted a curfew at 9 p.m., at which time a bell chimed to clear the streets.
Idiosyncrasies aside, Dickeyville gained credence when, in 1899, soon-to-be vice president Theodore Roosevelt visited to stump for William McKinley, his Republican running mate.
In 1909, the town changed hands again and began a downward spiral. During the Great Depression, gamblers and bootleggers ran the place until, in 1934, Dickeyville and its 81 buildings were sold at auction for $42,000. Developers overhauled the town in an effort to replicate “an old English village,” turning a warehouse, an old church and even a jail into homes. In 1972, Dickeyville made the list on the National Register of Historic Places.
Physical space
Generally, the village is bordered by Forest Park Ave. to the west and north, Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park to the east and Dickey Hill Road to the south.
Things to do
There are no playgrounds or schools, and business establishments are banned (the lone nonresidential building is the Dickeyville Memorial Presbyterian Church, founded in 1885). The 15-mile Gwynns Falls Trail beckons hikers and bikers; the garden club works to spiff up the landscape.
On the Fourth of July, the neighborhood closes one of its two main streets for a parade, auction, children’s games and a dinner/ dance. Other annual events include an art show, a chili cook-off and a pancake breakfast fundraiser for the garden club. More recently, there have been overnight camp-outs near the dam, with families pitching tents and lighting bonfires.
Demographics
The community’s population was 156 in the 2010 Census, according to an analysis by Baltimore’s planning department. In 2018, Dickeyville’s median household income was listed as $39,426, though it’s actually several times that, says Wharton, former president of the DCA. And while 2018 city data lists the racial breakdown as 85% African-American, in truth the historic district is no more than 20% so, says Wharton, who is Black.
Transit and walkability
Dickeyville’s walkability score ranks 21 out of 100, according to Live Baltimore, as some of the narrow streets lack sidewalks.
It is within walking distance of the Gwynns Falls Trail, Leakin Park and the Forest Park Golf Course. The MTA services both Forest Park Ave. and Dickey Hill Rd.
Issues
Construction and road
work along Forest Park Avenue have diverted traffic through Dickeyville, raising residents’ ire. And the tight, serpentine roads are difficult for the city to clean.
“We have to fight to get street sweepers to come,” says Wharton. Those who live near the dam want
better policing of that secluded area after dark to fend off late-night partying.
Leadership
Sarah Long, Dickeyville Community Association president; Kristerfer Burnett (D), Baltimore City Council, District 8.
The cicadas are coming! The cicadas are coming! I have blueberries, a new redbud tree, and want to put in a pollinator garden. What is the best way to protect them? Wait to plant the pollinator garden? Wrap trunks? How will the bees pollinate the blueberries? My neighbors are talking about digging up their asphalt driveway to release the cicadas trapped underneath because they’re “natural.” Ack!
Cicadas are, indeed, native and a huge food benefit to birds and wildlife. There should be plenty to go around, especially in areas with old trees. No need to delay your pollinator garden. When cicada nymphs first emerge from the soil, they climb up plants, including perennials,
but they merely need something to hold onto while they pop out of their exoskeleton as adults. They may suck a tiny bit of fluid, but not enough to damage plants. Then they fly away. (Bad eyesight, though — cicadas bang into things
sometimes.)
Though later cicada egg-laying can kill twigs, it’s no problem for mature trees. The resulting “tip-pruning” may even be beneficial. However young saplings can’t afford to lose a lot of branch mass. Netting (¼-½ ) is the most effective way to protect young trees or larger shrubs. (Not spraying pesticides!) Cicadas tend to ignore low bushy shrubs and evergreens. Net the leaf canopy, not the trunk. Netting can be draped and secured at ground level with weights, such as bricks. For small trees, roll net edges, then staple or lace up to leave no entry. Monitor for breakins. Mid-May is the time to net, no earlier. Cicadas are active for 4-6 weeks, after which remove netting.
Since bees must be able to pollinate blueberries, use larger gauge ½ netting to let them in. Or keep close watch and don’t overprune this spring, realizing cicadas may “prune” too. Search ‘cicadas’ on our website for many more answers and excellent links.
Meanwhile, enjoy and keep it all in perspective, like Benjamin Banneker, Baltimore County mathematician and astronomer, who observed in 1749: “I then imagined they came to eat and destroy the fruit of the Earth, and would occasion a famine in the land. I therefore began to kill and destroy them, but soon saw that my labor was in vain... Seventeen years after their first appearance, they made a second...I then...had more sense than to endeavour to destroy them, knowing they were not so pernicious to the fruit of the earth as I had imagined...” On the contrary, Banneker noted, cicadas “like the comets, make but a short stay with us . ... if their lives are short they are merry, they begin to Sing ...from the first they come out of Earth till they die, the hindermost part rots off, and it does not appear to be any pain to them for they still continue on Singing till they die.”
University of Maryland Extension’s Home and Garden Information Center offers free gardening and pest information at extension.umd.edu/hgic. Click “Ask Maryland’s Gardening Experts” to send questions and photos.
Q: I have a question about the timeshare property that was owned by my late husband. My husband died of a sudden heart attack recently, without a will. He was the sole owner of the timeshare and he had no estate and there’s no probate case pending.
I don’t want the timeshare. I just mailed the timeshare company the death certificate. Since my husband had no estate, I think I can abandon it if I wanted to. Am I correct? My name is not on the deed.
A: We often get letters from timeshare owners asking us how they can sell or get out from under their timeshare agreements. For many vacationing travelers, the lure of a timeshare is too much and they take a leap of faith and buy one. Most — at least from our mailbox — don’t imagine there would come a time that they wouldn’t want it. But five, 10 or 20 years later, they’re paying monthly for something that goes unused.
The question then becomes, why is it so hard to get rid of timeshares?
A timeshare purchase generally involves the payment of an upfront sum to a timeshare company. In exchange for that payment, the buyer gets the right to use a property for a week or so every year. Frequently, the timeshare buyer gets the exact same week every year in exactly the same unit. Sometimes, and this is happening more frequently, the timeshare buyer gets allotted a certain number of “points,” which allows them to apply their
timeshare slot to a larger number of properties in a network, with properties located all over the globe.
Many future timeshare owners go to the “free” lunch or dinner, checkbook in hand, and think that the initial payment is all they’ll be making. Not quite. Depending on what type of arrangement you buy into, the buyer must also pay yearly assessments and yearly real estate taxes. Beyond that, if you do buy in a specific property, and something goes wrong, you may be asked to kick in for special assessments down the line.
Some people love their timeshares. And for those wondering about the company we keep, let us assure you we do know people who purchased timeshare properties and happily used those properties
year after year.
The problems come when the timeshare owners’ fortunes change, and they no longer want or can afford the payments. Selling it is the trick, and you have to be very careful to avoid getting taken.
Depending on the type of timeshare you own, the only way you can sell it will be to some other buyer willing to buy into your exact week in the exact property you want. In these situations, the timeshare companies will often charge a transfer fee on the sale of a timeshare, but in others the timeshare company will assist in the sale and expect a commission. For hotel timeshare properties, you may only be able to use the hotel timeshare office to sell your timeshare points, if you’re allowed to sell or transfer
the points at all.
In the worst situations, you can’t sell the timeshare because no one wants it. At any price. Even free.
What happens if you simply don’t pay the expenses and pretend like you don’t own the timeshare? Well, when a timeshare owner fails to make the monthly or annual payment, the management company can sue the owner, send the debt to a collection agency or take over the timeshare unit.
That leads us to you.
Your husband purchased the timeshare in his name, and he has since passed on. The payments obligations on the timeshare were your husband’s and when he died, that responsibility passed on to his estate. It does not matter whether your husband died with or without a will, with or without
assets or with or without debts. When he died, all of his assets and all of his debts belonged to his estate.
As his surviving spouse, you are entitled to the timeshare but can refuse to accept it. So, where does that leave you? If you don’t own it and you are not responsible for his estate, the timeshare company might be out of luck going after your husband’s estate and might just take over the timeshare and leave it at that. Depending on the state in which you live, as the surviving spouse, you might have a responsibility to take care of the affairs of your husband’s estate. But what your responsibility might be and what duties you might have to dispose of assets is dictated by state law.
In the meantime, you did the right thing by sending the death certificate to the timeshare company. We wouldn’t say that you are abandoning the timeshare but, rather, that you are not accepting the ownership of the timeshare resulting from your husband’s death. Unless the laws in your state require you to take ownership or to pay for your husband’s debts, you should be fine.
On the other hand, now that the timeshare company knows of your husband’s death, we think the timeshare company should close his account, take over the timeshare, and that would leave them free to resell the timeshare to another person.