Gio Urshela finds a home in the Bronx

There was a time in his life when Gio’s Urshela’s hands were the key to his future – but not in baseball. That might be hard to for the Yankees to believe, considering the grace and beauty of his defense at third base, not to mention the club’s reliance on him following Miguel Andújar’s season-ending shoulder surgery.

But rewind a decade or so. Zero in on Cartagena, Colombia, and you’d find Urshela using those hands as a goalkeeper on a local soccer field.

Like most Cartagena kids his age, Urshela had a vision of someday playing in the World Cup. Colombia is a soccer-crazed country, bordering Brazil, another giant of The Beautiful Game. It wasn’t uncommon to dream big; in parts of Latin America that goal has nothing to do with baseball.

Urshela wasn’t your typical Colombian teenager. For all his skills on the soccer pitch he wasn’t too bad at baseball, either. In fact, he and his brothers played in high school. Their dad was an aficionado of the sport’s first cousin, softball. What drove Urshela were the fast-twitch reflexes that made handling grounders as natural as stopping those booming kicks.

“My hands, they were always quick,” Urshela said as he came closer to a crossroads moment in his sports upbringing. His father said it was time to choose a future – soccer or baseball.

That was no small decision, although something about America’s national pastime had sunk its hooks into him.

Maybe it was because a few – not many, but enough – Colombians had already blazed a trail in the States. The list includes Edgar Rentería and Orlando Cabrera, who were the most well-known countrymen during Urshela’s upbringing. These days it’s Julio Teheran, also from Cartagena, who ranks as Colombia’s most successful ballplayer. Those role models made it a little easier for Urshela to pick the right horse.

“I want you to concentrate on soccer,” the elder Urshela said.

“I said no,” Urshela recalled. “I told him I preferred baseball.”

That was the starter’s gun on a long march to The Show. Not in his wildest dreams did Urshela ever think he’d wind up in Pinstripes, but it’s not like the 27-time world champs were unheard of in Colombia, either.

As he put it, “for a country that doesn’t have a lot of baseball, you’d be surprised how many Colombians love this team. There are Yankees fans everywhere.”

To say Urshela has become a hero back home is the understatement of the season. After a particularly impressive game against the Royals on April 21 – a double and two singles in the Yankees’ 9-1 victory – Colombia’s president Iván Duque personally tweeted his praise of the country’s newest phenom.

Urshela insists he’s not entirely surprised by the success, as he says “I’ve always believed my hard work would pay off.” But there was plenty of sweat equity in that climb. It wasn’t until now, his age-27 season, that Urshela’s career has finally seen daylight.

In fact, while he’s not yet a journeyman, Urshela can no longer be considered young. He’s merely young-ish ,which means the Yankees were probably his last shot. But to hear club executives tell it, Urshela would’ve been wearing the Pinstripes years ago had fate intervened while the Colombian infielder was toiling in the Indians’ system.

“We’d always had interest in Gio. We recognized his elite defense,” said general manager Brian Cashman. “The question was: could we match up with Cleveland to make something happen? The answer was we couldn’t. But we kept an eye on him.”

There were two factors working against Urshela in Cleveland. The first was All-Star José Ramírez, who had third base locked down. The second was Urshela’s lack of footspeed, which precluded him playing either shortstop or second base. Thus he landed with the Blue Jays, from whom the Yankees purchased Urshela last August.

The Bombers had their man, finally, although they hedged their bets, choosing not to protect Urshela on their 40-man roster over the winter. Despite the smooth glove, he was still an unanswered question at the plate. In his last three years with the Indians and Blue Jays, Urshela batted only .225 with a meager .589 OPS. He was quickly cementing a reputation as an offensively-challenged, career minor leaguer – until late last season.

Urshela batted .307 with an .815 OPS in 27 games for the Yankees’ Class-AAA affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes Barre, then caught fire again in spring training. At that point manager Aaron Boone suggested to Cashman that it’d be wise to find a roster spot for Urshela – not just on the 40-man, but perhaps the big league team, too.

The opportunity has come the hard way – via Andújar’s torn labrum – but that hasn’t stopped Urshela from making the most of it. As of this week he was batting .336, lashing one big hit after another, including the walk-off RBI single in the Yankees’ come-from-behind victory over the Rays on May 17th.

Teammates mobbed Urshela at first base, and CC Sabathia spoke for the entire clubhouse when he said, “everyone had a good feeling about Gio in that spot. I said, ‘we got this’ when he walked up there (to the plate).”

Urshela appreciates the praise. True to his modest nature, though, he refuses to gloat.

“I’m just honored and happy to be here,” he said.

The feeling clearly goes both ways.

Featured Image: Mike Stobe / Getty Images Sport