I’ve been covering baseball in one way or another since 2002. In that time, there’s no player I’ve enjoyed working with more than Carlos Beltran, starting when he was on the Mets. Now that he’s playing across town, I’ve had a chance to work really closely with him on a few occasions for Yankees Magazine features. In 2014, I went to his house in Puerto Rico for a story on his rehab from elbow surgery and the baseball academy that he runs on the island. I had a lot of fun reporting that story, and learning about the things that make him so passionate about Puerto Rico and his hometown of Manati.
Since then, I’ve had numerous opportunities to chat with Carlos. He’s such an interesting guy. He is so intelligent about the game, and you can see that in the way he plays. A few days ago, he made a baserunning error, and it was totally galling in a way that it never would have been for anyone else. If there’s one thing you could always say about Carlos Beltran, it was that he had a baseball IQ that was off the charts.
But from experience, I’ve found that whenever I have interviewed a Yankees player, if we start talking about guys who have helped them, almost without fail they mentioned Beltran. One guy after another. He would work in the cage with them. He would help them watch video. He would just point out this or that. I realized, as his three-year contract with the Yankees nears its end, that I wanted to look at the way that players around the league perceive them, and what it says about his Hall of Fame chances, which I happen to think are pretty good.
Two really fun things happened while I was reporting this. First, when I was talking to Dillon Gee, a former teammate of Beltran’s with the Mets, he casually dropped in a mention of this tres leches cake that Beltran would prepare for the team. I was floored. I thought that I knew pretty much all about this guy, but it was the first I was hearing of him baking anything. I asked Beltran about it, and he started cracking up, but he confirmed the story.
Secondly, when Carlos and I were having lunch on the Upper East Side, I was really taken, as always, by how interesting the conversation was, but I couldn’t figure out exactly where I wanted to go with the story. About an hour into our interview, I was about to transition to talking about Roberto Clemente, when all of a sudden, Carlos said the following during a conversation about crafting a legacy and helping other players:
“That’s the most important thing. That’s the most important. For me, that’s more important than any award. If I was able to impact somebody in a positive way, or help that person to turn something in his career, to extend his career, that’s what you care about the most. When I hear stories about players that played 18 years, but they didn’t talk to anybody, they didn’t help anyone. Well, what’s the point? You didn’t impact anyone. For me, if you play all this time in baseball, you had a good career. But you impacted zero. So for me, it’s not worth it. For me, what is important is making sure that I use my knowledge, my time, and everything that I have learned to try and pass that on. That’s the beauty of baseball.”
I couldn’t believe it — this was suddenly the exact story that I wanted to write. I had read David Maraniss’s Clemente biography years back, and I’ve read plenty about the guy since. This quote from Beltran, it couldn’t sound more like Clemente if he had actually been trying. I was really blown away.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the story.
http://m.yankees.mlb.com/news/article/181533982/carlos-beltran-makes-a-case-for-hall-of-fame?topicid=163658034
