Just 5-9, Orlando Cabrera has become a big success

Orlando Cabrera was a hit in the field and at the plate for the Angels this season, leading AL shortshops in fielding percentage and ranking third in batting average. Wireimage.com

By Melissa Segura, SI.com

Orlando Cabrera isn't supposed to be sitting on this bus on this June 1993 morning, sputtering west along a Colombian roadway from his college dorm in Magdalena to his family home in Cartagena, where a contract with the Montreal Expos sits, awaiting his signature. At least not according to the math professor who's looking at the empty desk where Cabrera is scheduled to be taking the exam for which he spent a chunk of the previous night studying. Not according to the University of Miami, the school that's trying to sign Cabrera as its point guard. And definitely not according to the dozen baseball scouts who refused to sign him -- even for free -- because he was too short and skinny to ever make it to the majors.

But a funny thing happens when a man -- no, a boy, really -- chooses his faith in himself over the doubts of others. That's why Cabrera, now 32, is once again where he's not supposed to be but always believed he could be: All 5-foot-9 of him standing tall among American League shortstops, ranking No. 1 in fielding percentage (.983) and third in batting average (.301) and RBIs (89) this season, numbers that have helped the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to their fourth postseason appearance in six years.

In order to understand what brought Cabrera here, to Boston to face the team that let him go after he had helped the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years, make a U-turn, follow the signs, and get back on that bus in Magdalena, where Cabrera's road to the majors was filled with bumps, sudden stops and the occasional detour.

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Cabrera needed his mom to agree to his plan. "Please," he pleaded with her back in 1991, "give me one year to see if I can get signed." At 16, Cabrera had already finished high school and knew that his schoolteacher mother, Josefina, who had more than 55 educational certificates hanging around the house, wanted him to go to college. Some 13 years earlier she had already seen baseball break the heart of another man she loved, Cabrera's father and her husband, Jolbert Sr., when a broken leg ended his career at age 30, and then take her oldest son, Jolbert Jr., just two years older than Orlando, to faraway places like Sumter and Albany. "Please," Orlando begged. "Just one year."

"One year," she finally agreed.

How could she say no? She had always loved seeing her youngest son clobber the competition with little more than sheer will. She cried when Orlando, at age 11, hit his first home run. In the Cabrera family baseball wasn't just a game that was played but a passion that was felt. That partly explains why Jolbert Sr., who began coaching the local professional team, the Indios, after his playing career was over, was ejected from almost every game for arguing calls. "Bobby Cox? Lou Piniella? Those guys didn't have anything on him," Orlando says.

But the scouts did find plenty of young players who had a lot on Orlando. During his one-year tryout period the months passed by Cabrera just as quickly as the teams did. "Too short," one scout said. "Too skinny," said another, after one look at the fungo-bat-thin shortstop. "He won't hit," said another. The Rangers, Yankees and Dodgers all said thanks but no thanks. Cabrera, running out of time and teams, wondered if an offer would ever come. That's when the Marlins called.

Jolbert Sr., had worked as a Latin American scout here and there for several big league teams. Those connections came through when a Marlins scout asked Jolbert Sr. to bring his son to a tryout in Venezuela. Cabrera took his meatiest swings and made his best throws as his father and Marlins representatives looked on. Orlando could see them talking, negotiating. This had to be good. This had to be his chance. The Cabreras finally had their offer, but it wasn't the one they expected. The Marlins wanted to know: Would Jolbert Sr. consider joining the team as a scout?

Jolbert Sr. took the job. Then he started calling everyone he knew in baseball. He pleaded with his supervisors, "Let me sign my son." But between calling in favors ("Sign him for free? Please?"), he had to scout other prospects. Never could he have predicted that by doing his job he would be making his own son's road to the majors even more uphill.

Jolbert Sr. tilted the Latin American baseball world's axis west, toward Colombia, when he signed strapping, 6-1 Edgar Renteria for the Marlins in 1992. Renteria's roping muscle, range and flat-out athleticism sent a flurry of scouts looking for the next Renteria. Cabrera was anything but. His passion can't be clocked a radar gun, nor his intuition by a stopwatch. After 365 days of trying, Cabrera's year was up. His big league dreams, it seems, were dead.

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