Panama's Manuel Corpas a big hit as Colorado closer

In his first full season the majors, Manuel Corpas became the Rockies' closer and set a franchise record for the best ERA by a reliever (2.08). ICON SMI

By Melissa Segura, SI.com

Reprinted from SI Latino

He tried -- really tried -- to get it right, to be the good guy. It seemed like such a good idea when Manuel Corpas scooped up all the dirty clothes from the floor of the Panama City hotel room he was sharing with his girlfriend, stuffed one bag with his clothes, another with hers, and took a cab to a nearby laundromat.

The couple had been staying at a hotel near his childhood home partly because the renovations he'd paid for left little room for them and partly because, for the first time, he could afford a nice room. His girlfriend, Amy Spanier, had gone to the hotel gym. Manuel wanted to surprise her when she came back, to show her how much he appreciated those moments back in 2006 when she would be stuck in his apartment stairwell of their building in Tulsa, Okla., wondering how she was going to move their double bed all by herself because he'd been promoted to Colorado Springs, and when she had to explain to her employer and the apartment manager only a week later that they were moving again, because Corpas had been called up to the major leagues. Taking care of her laundry seemed like the least he could do.

After he'd folded the clean clothes at the laundromat he caught another taxi back to the hotel, paid the driver and strode triumphantly into the lobby ... with one bag of laundry. His own.

Once he realized that the only clothes his girlfriend would have were her sweaty gym togs, a less famous man might have run back into the street, trying to find the cab in a big city chock-full of them. But Corpas is a major league closer. He simply went to the taxi dispatcher's office and said, "I'm Manuel Corpas." Within minutes the clothes were back.

In Panama that simple sentence, "This is Manuel Corpas," is like Aladdin's lamp: It magically grants wishes and opens doors. It suddenly frees the best tables at crowded restaurants and pulls back velvet ropes. From dark country backroads to bright city malls, the closer who helped propel the Colorado Rockies to their first National League pennant and the 2007 World Series is his country's most beloved ballplayer.

As he rides through city traffic, drivers in neighboring cars roll down their windows to snap his picture. Sure, Panamanians will say, they are proud of Gatún-born Hall of Famer Rod Carew and Puerto Caimito's Mariano Rivera. But Carew went to high school in New York City, and Rivera wouldn't don the Panamanian jersey for the 2006 World Baseball Classic. But Manuel Corpas? Well, they say, Manuel is ours.

In just one year, Panamanians who did not know the difference between the Colorado Rockies and the Chilean Andes have fallen hard for the right-hander with the 98-mile-an-hour fastball and the nasty sinker. They pack sports bars and restaurants to watch Colorado games -- or at least the eight and ninth innings, when their countryman pitches. In his first full year in the majors, the 6-foot-3, 170-pound Corpas snatched the closer's role from three-time All-Star Brian Fuentes, set a franchise record for the best ERA by a reliever (2.08) and collected four saves in the postseason, the most since Rivera saved five for the New York Yankees in 2003. Corpas might have surpassed Rivera's record had the Boston Red Sox not swept the Rockies in the World Series. But while Corpas's success has earned him respect, it's his deep connection to his homeland that's made him adored.

*****

The boy always knew what he wanted to do with his life: Play baseball. Pitch or catch, to be more specific. He had seen himself atop a mound for as long as he could remember, but he'd settle in behind the plate if he had to, covering his body with pieces of cardboard cut to look like the shin guards and chest protectors he'd seen big leaguers wear on TV. He'd go home rather than play third base, leftfield or anywhere else for that matter. The Gil women, the maternal side of Manuel's family, lived shoulder-to-shoulder on a strip of land in Chilibre, 25 miles northwest of the Panamanian capital, and they produced a handful of boys who, with some neighborhood friends, made a full lineup of boys. Rather than play one man short, Manuel's cousins would just nod and let Puny -- that's what they called him -- pitch or catch.

Every day each of the cousins would stand in his stadium -- that's what he believed his patio was -- and be his own announcer. "From the Estadio Mariano Bula in Colón, playing leftfield, Rooooooonnie!!!"

"From Estadio Matuna in La Chorrera, playing third base, José Ángel Delgadooooo."

The imaginary crowd would go wild as the boys, dressed in their school uniforms -- white T-shirts and red shorts with white stripes down the sides -- beat a brown path through the green grass on their way to their improvised field. They would play until the palm fronds they used to make bats had broken or there were no more tennis balls to hit. Or, which was more often the case, until they heard the rumble of the bus bringing home their mothers, who had gone to work after leaving lists of chores for the children to do before they returned.

The sound of the bus sent the boys scurrying off to the dishes that needed washing or patios that needed sweeping. But not Puny. He'd just stand on the field, mad that everyone else had left with a 3-2 count.

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