ST. LOUIS — Rising up on the western tip of Cuba, Andy Pages excelled at each sport he performed.
He was good at soccer and volleyball, arguably higher at basketball. However he cherished baseball for causes that weren’t essentially restricted to the sport.
Pages’ father, Liban, a carpenter who had a job repairing picket boats, helped make his son’s first bats by hand, utilizing leftover lumber given to him by buddies. Quickly baseball grew to become the boy’s favourite pastime.
“When I was starting to play baseball in Cuba, when things were really bad, there were no bats. There weren’t things like that,” Pages mentioned in Spanish. “So he always tried to make me a bat so I could play.
“I became more motivated, and from that point on, we’ve been playing baseball.”
The game finally proved to be a means off the island for Pages, who has emerged as one of many Dodgers’ brightest stars in simply his second season with the crew.
He entered the beginning of a three-game collection Monday in San Diego hitting .288 with 12 residence runs and 39 RBIs, trailing solely Shohei Ohtani in homers and matching Ohtani for third on the crew in RBIs. He’s additionally tied for second in stolen bases with six and has but to be thrown out.
If he can keep constant, he has an opportunity to turn into the primary Dodger heart fielder to hit higher than .250 with 25 homers since Matt Kemp in 2011.
Though Pages by no means performed in Cuba’s elite Serie Nacional, the proving floor for stars comparable to Yuli Gurriel, Yunel Escobar and Orlando “El Duque” Hernández, he grew to become one of many nation’s high prospects after hitting .364/.484/.581 in a under-15 league.
Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages rifles the ball to second base to stop Arizona’s Ketel Marte from advancing on a single at Dodger Stadium on Could 20.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Occasions)
That satisfied Pages (pronounced PAH-hays) he had an opportunity to be a giant leaguer some day. So at 16, the Athletic reported, he organized to be spirited off the island alongside Jairo Pomares, one other younger Cuban star, touring via Guyana, Curacao and Haiti earlier than crossing within the Dominican Republic. He then waited eight months earlier than the Dodgers signed him as a global free agent in March 2018, giving him a $300,000 bonus, greater than 1,500 occasions the common annual wage in Cuba, in line with CiberCuba.
Pomares signed with the San Francisco Giants at about the identical time, however whereas he stays within the minors, Pages’ climb to the majors was regular. He reached triple A by the beginning the 2024 season. He didn’t keep at Oklahoma Metropolis lengthy, nonetheless, hitting .371/.452/.694 with 15 RBIs in 15 video games to earn a call-up to the Dodgers.
Earlier than his rookie season was over, Pages was a World Sequence champion. He paid a heavy value for that although, going seven years with out seeing his household in individual.
“It was emotional since I hadn’t seen them for a long time,” mentioned Pages, 24, who returned to Cuba for the primary time the winter earlier than his big-league debut.
His sister, Elaine, a toddler when he left “was already a full-grown woman.”
“So those memories came back to me, and they were quite — how should I say it? — quite strong for me,” mentioned Pages, who introduced his father a couple of of the machine-made bats he used within the minor leagues.
But when his father offered the spark that made his son a baseball participant, teammate Teoscar Hernández offered the assistance, steerage and mentoring that made Pages an on a regular basis main leaguer.
“He’s played in the major leagues for a long time now,” Pages mentioned of Hernández, a 10-year veteran who signed with the Dodgers months earlier than Pages made his big-league debut. “He’s been through a lot of bad times. I went through that at the beginning of the season, for example, and last year too. And he’s given me advice that’s helped me a lot to get through that time.”
With Pages’ household nonetheless in Cuba, Hernández has turn into a giant brother in addition to a teammate, taking him out for dinner on off days or simply getting collectively to play video video games.
Andy Pages runs the bases after hitting a solo residence run towards the Athletics at Dodger Stadium on Could 14.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Occasions)
“Getting through bad times is sometimes a little difficult when you’re alone, when you don’t have anyone to help you, to give you good advice, and to make you understand that sometimes things don’t happen when you want them to,” Pages mentioned.
And that’s labored out properly for Pages. Three video games after Hernández returned from a rehab task final month, Pages began a streak that may see him hit in 13 of his subsequent 14 begins, together with 11 in a row, elevating his common 24 factors to .293. He’s batting .379 with a team-high 11 hits in seven video games this month.
“We try to go out to my house. We go out to a restaurant with my wife, his wife. Just so we can get together, have time to enjoy and not think about baseball,” Hernández mentioned.
Pages isn’t the primary participant to learn from Hernández’s mentorship. Throughout his six seasons in Toronto, Hernández took one other gifted rookie, fellow Dominican Vladimir Guerrero Jr., underneath his wing. Guerrero is now a four-time All-Star.
Hernández remains to be so revered in Toronto when the Dodgers performed there final season, some Blue Jays gamers wore his previous uniform quantity throughout batting observe. Earlier this 12 months Guerrero provided to purchase him a $300,000 Richard Mille watch; Hernández joked he’d reasonably have cash as a substitute.
Because the quiet Pages has grown extra assured and cozy with the Dodgers, his play has improved. A speedy outfielder with a plus arm, he can also play all three positions.
And whereas he left Cuba, he by no means absolutely left it behind, having expressed curiosity in representing the nation in subsequent 12 months’s World Baseball Traditional. The choice to go to the Dominican Republic as a youngster, in spite of everything, was a enterprise one, not a private one.
Pages would additionally wish to carry his household to U.S. some day, although that dream was dealt a setback final week when President Trump signed an govt order limiting entry to Cubans hoping to come back to the U.S.
“Hope is always there,” mentioned Pages, who has overwhelmed impossibly lengthy odds as soon as. “But you have to follow the rules, get the papers, do whatever it takes to make sure everything’s OK. And then get here and stay here.
“I’m just trying, trying until they can leave.”
