In the summer of 1978 in Caracas, Venezuela, the mother wanted to name her baby “Yorman,” which means “one who serves.” The father objected. His son must be called “Victor,” a “conqueror of opponents.”
The parents compromised.
“Yorvit,” it was.
“I don’t know how it turned out to have a ‘t’ instead of a ‘c’,” says Yorvit Torrealba. “I just know I don’t like the name.”
Quite possibly there are only two other males in the entire world named “Yorvit.”
“A woman came up to me after a game in winter ball (in Venezuela) and said she liked the way I play so much, she named her son after me. I thought it was such a great honor, I said to her. As she went away, I said to myself, ‘Poor kid.”‘
Yorvit and his wife Milangela have a 10-year-old son.
His name is Yorvit.
“That was all my wife,” Torrealba says, and laughs.
After signing with the Giants as an unprocessed 16-year-old and spending 13 years playing from Bellingham to Burlington to Bakersfield, Shreveport (parts of three seasons) to San Jose (parts of three seasons), San Francisco to Seattle and Colorado Springs to Denver, Yorvit finally is making a name for himself in major-league baseball as the Rockies’ catcher.
Midway through spring training, I wrote that the opening-day starting lineup should be: Helton, Matsui, Tulowitzki, Atkins, Holliday, Taveras, Hawpe and Torrealba. Seamheads and Rox brass scoffed at the inclusion of Torrealba. He was a career backup with a bad shoulder and a weak bat, and young Chris Iannetta would be the club’s dominant catcher for 2007. Torrealba did not appear in the Rockies’ first two games of the season.
Tuesday night’s 8-0 loss at San Diego was Torrealba’s 14th game of the past 15. His 79 games this season are a career high. Torrealba has become The Iron Man in the Mask for the Rox.
Iannetta recently took his .179 average and inexperience back to Colorado Springs. The Rockies’ fresh “Sunday” catcher is Geronimo Gil (there’s another name).
Torrealba is hitting .277, and led the Rockies in July at .391. Among National League catchers, only the Dodgers’ Russell Martin and the Brewers’ Johnny Estrada have better batting averages.
“Playing every day, you’re going to get a lot more at-bats and a lot more looks at pitchers and a lot more confidence in yourself,” Torrealba said the other day. “I feel like I’ve become the player I dreamed I wanted to be as a boy in Venezuela.”
But hitting is not what Torrealba is primarily about. He is concentrating on handling a pitching staff – ever changing at the bottom of the rotation – and developing into a quasi-leader on a young team. (Yorvit turned 29 last month.)
If this team is to contend in the last month and a half, somebody has to guide the pitchers and the followers.
“I don’t think of myself as a leader – yet. I would like to be. When I was a Little Leaguer in Venezuela, my coach said I had to take over on the field, and I always felt that was my big role.”
Catcher Joe Girardi was the Rockies’ sergeant-at-arms in the franchise’s first three seasons. He dressed down teammates and the media (me) and was such a leader in the players’ strike it got him traded out of Colorado. Girardi was the NL manager of the year in 2006, then the fiery leader was fired.
On July 26, in the Rockies’ last series at home against the Dodgers, pitcher Rodrigo Lopez had two outs in the seventh inning when Torrealba requested a fastball. Lopez floated a changeup. Torrealba called out the trainer and the manager. Something was wrong with Lopez. Torrealba almost never speaks Spanish to the club’s Latino pitchers, but this time he did. “Don’t ruin your career for one game,” he said to Lopez, who just stared at him.
Torrealba grabbed the ball from Lopez’s glove and handed it to Clint Hurdle. Lopez was later placed on the disabled list with a torn tendon in his right arm, finishing his season.
“The pitchers are comfortable with me now. In the past maybe they didn’t. I play for one game, then sit for four or five. How can the pitchers be sure the catcher knows which pitch is right when he’s not often in the lineup?
“It’s a circle of trust.”
The final 44 games will be a grind – and a thrill – for Torrealba, who played in the 2003 postseason with the Giants but had just three at-bats. “I’m so happy for the team and for me. We are right in it (the division and wild-card race), and I have to be important.”
Venezuela has produced 27 major-league catchers, beginning with Bo Diaz’s debut with Boston in 1977. But Torrealba idolized a catcher from Puerto Rico and a first baseman from his home country.
“The biggest moment for me was playing in San Francisco with my heroes, Benito Santiago and Andres Galarraga. I hope today there are kids in Venezuela who want to be like me.”
And be named Yorvit – a catcher who serves to be a victor.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
