The Journey Home by Jorge Posada

Author:Jorge Posada
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062379641
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Settling In

Like a lot of students, I was often told that, while I might have heard what was being said, I wasn’t really listening. Before our disappointing finish in 1995, I had heard a number of my teammates say that they wanted to win in part for the Cap, but also because they weren’t all going to be together again. While I heard those words, I wasn’t really listening to what they meant. I was too busy being caught up in the thrill of the big leagues to fully understand what they were talking about. Going into that off-season, I thought I understood some of the realities of the professional life of a baseball player, but I quickly learned a lot about how this business worked.

Take Mike Stanley for example. When I first joined the team in September, I heard him saying to me that he was basically conceding his role with the Yankees to me the next season. I guess I should have listened and thought about it more. He was coming off a series of productive years with the Yankees, not to mention an All-Star season in ’95. His skills weren’t eroding and he wasn’t passing the torch. Instead, he got a better offer to go play someplace else—in his case, Boston. I’m not saying that Mike already knew that he was leaving the Yankees when I first arrived, but he was a free agent and probably knew that he was going to test the waters. What was going on in the minds of the Yankees front office is something I don’t know. But as happens nearly every year with every club, changes were coming.

The changes in the Yankees organization that year affected me and my perceptions of where I fit in the big picture. In November 1995, to fill Mike’s spot on the roster, the Yankees traded for Joe Girardi, who came over from the Colorado Rockies. When I heard the news, I was back in Puerto Rico, and while at first I was happy about the Stanley signing (and happy for him that he got a nice deal), I wasn’t so happy about having new competition in Joe. I had nothing against Joe—I didn’t know him at all—but he was somebody I was going to have to compete with for a spot on that roster. The baseball equivalent of Mother Teresa could have been brought in as a catcher, and I still wouldn’t have been pleased.

I wanted that job. I believed that I was ready and that I had done all that was asked of me to transform myself into a big league catcher. Did that mean that I was ready to start every day?

Yes.

If I didn’t have that kind of faith in myself, then I wouldn’t have achieved what I had to that point. Show me a guy who doesn’t think he can or should be an everyday player, and I’ll show you a guy who sits on the bench and deserves to because he doesn’t have enough faith in himself.

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