Jorge Posada - The journey home: my life in pinstripes

Even though I only played for one team in my entire career, I have a few teams to thank for making this book possible.

First, I have to thank my parents, Jorge and Tamara, for all their support and for everything they did to make me the man I am today. My sister, Michelle, has always provided me with support and unconditional love. My lovely wife, Laura, has always pushed me to become a better player and a better person. And I thank my beautiful kids, Jorge Luis and Paulina, for teaching me what true love really is. I love you all.

Id also like to thank my agents, Sam and Seth Levinson, for making my life easier. To Michele Tronolone for always answering the phone when I needed her the most. To my attorney, Luis Espinel, for being my friend above everything.

Id also like to thank Gary Brozek for his help in telling my story. Behind the scenes at HarperCollins, my editor Matt Harper was passionate about the book from the very beginning, as was Lisa Sharkey. Its great to have people in your corner supporting you, and I know that we all benefitted from the efforts of Matts assistant, Daniella Valladares, to get the book complete. Thanks also to my publicist Danielle Bartlett for her hard work.

Lastly, I would like to thank the Steinbrenner family and the Yankees organization for supporting me and encouraging me through every part of my career. And to all my Yankees teammates and to all the fans, thank you for everything you have given me. Your help and support through the years made this whole journey possible.

I dont think that anybody is born to play a certain position, but I do know this: when I came into this world on August 17, 1970, there was at least one person who believed that I should be a ballplayer. That was my father. He was so excited to have a son, and he told my mom, Tamara, that he was going to make me into a ballplayer. Im sure that lots of fathers have big dreams for their children and they all want them to succeed. Im not sure that all of them have a plan in mind, though, or are willing to take the steps my dad did to ensure that their vision becomes a reality. Mine was.

As I kid, I wondered how I could live out such a big dream when I was one of the smallest in my grade. I also wondered how I could ever be as accomplished an athlete as my father was. My father didnt brag, but we had two large albums filled with yellowing pages of newsprint that showed all the things my father had done as an athlete while living in Cuba. One was for before and the other after. The big event in the middle that helped define those two words was Castros take-over of the nation that my fathers family had loved and enjoyed living in for generations. My paternal grandfather had worked in sales for a pharmaceutical company. He drove himself hard to make a good life for his wife, son, and three daughters. He was not around much because of his devotion to his job, but my father learned from his example. No one is going to hand you anything in this life; if you get ahead it is because you wanted to be proud of yourself and what you were able to do for your family. My grandfather was a good track athlete in his day, running 5,000- and 10,000-meter races where endurance mattered as much as speed.

In looking at the before scrapbook, I didnt fully understand that sometimes circumstances could occur to take things away from you. What I saw was an account of my father setting a national record in the breaststroke, leading his team to a win in basketball, and making a name for himself in baseball to the point that a Philadelphia As scout who came to see another player noticed my fathers hustle and talent and offered him a contract. For a long time, I didnt understand why it was that my father signed that contract but never got to play. I didnt think too much about what that said about him. I was mostly interested in charting my fathers physical development. I was always the smallest in my grade, a skinny kid with thin limbs. My dad had looked the same way in the early photographs of him as a swimmer, but over the years he became taller and broader and I hoped that I would take after him. I also hoped that one day Id be able to fill two scrapbooks with my achievements.

Well before I could read and think at all about my dads past and how he was influencing my present and my future, I was already in love with baseball.

I just loved swinging a bat and watching the ball fly off it in the Puerto Rican sky. I was spending time with my dad, and that was a good thing. Eventually Id make friends in the neighborhood and also learn to toss the ball to myself and hit mini-versions of fungoes, but almost all of my earliest memories of my dad revolve around either playing or watching baseball together.

My dad wasnt big about telling me why he had me do some of the things he did. He was more like that quiet guy in the clubhouse who chooses to lead by example. I knew that my dad worked hard, doing a bunch of different jobs to make a living for us. We lived in a nice house, my dad drove a car, and he left every day early in the morning, came home around dinnertime, and frequently went out again. During the days, my father worked for Richardson-Vicks, a pharmaceutical company, and later for Procter & Gamble. He also coached baseball and basketball, played softball a couple nights a week, and seemed to be in constant motion. Along with his regular job, he sold cigars and baseball gloves to make more money. A few times he made brief mentions of how he had once gone without food, but I never experienced anything like that. Christmas was always a big deal and I can still picture my first bikea Tyler bikeand my Ford Mustang pedal car. Our car always smelled of leather and cigarsnot from armchairs or upholstery but from baseball gloves. To this day, if I could, I wouldnt mind having the scent of baseball gloves piped into my house. I can still remember sitting there with some of those gloves, trying to figure out what those letters meant. H-E-A-R-T-O-F-T-H-E-H-I-D-E and E-D-U-C-A-T-E-D-H-E-E-L were my first spelling lessons in English.

Sometimes my dad would take me with him on those after-work sales calls, and Id sit there watching the palm trees and the hills pass by as we drove around. Id sit in the car sometimes and watch him hustle away, gloves and boxes of cigars tucked under his arm, him looking like a running back busting through a hole in the line. He wasnt a big guyfive feet nine inchesbut very muscular.

My mom was always home with me; in fact, she didnt learn to drive a car until I was in my midteens. Eventually my sister, Michelle, came along, four years later, in 1974. About the time she was born my dad was doing some part-time scouting for the Houston Astros, then later on for the Yankees, and then the Blue Jays. Hed be away on those trips, but never for very long. When I think of those days now, it was like I lived in two different houses. The one I spent time in with my mom and sister had a lot of light and air and laughter in it. In a way, it was like a classroom when the teacher isnt present. When Dad came home, it wasnt like everything got dark and suffocating, but we all came to attention, sat up straighter, and wiped those goofy smiles off our faces. My dad commanded respect, and over time Id learn to fear him as well.

If I associate my father with the odors of leather and tobacco, my mom reminds me of the mouthwatering cooking smells of arroz con frijoles negros, carne, and platanitos. My dad worked hard to provide for us, and my mom worked hard to keep us well fed and neatly clothed. She was from the Dominican Republic, and she had brought her favorite recipes with her. The best things she brought with her were her parents, my grandmother Lupe and my grandfather Rafael. To give you an idea how close I was to them and how different my relationship with them was, I called him Pap Fello and her Mam Upe.