For the past two
summers, you’d be hard pressed to find a better pitcher in the southwestern
part of the country than Alfredo Caballero.
A mountain of a man, armed with a 96 mile-per-hour fastball, his resume
boasts all-star selections, a Pitcher of the Year Award, a championship ring,
and strikeout totals that resemble stats from players in video games. “El Gallo Negro,” as he’s known, has been the
toast of the town in Alpine, Texas, and recently received a promotion to the
team in San Angelo, where his success continued. Though things may seem to come easy to
Alfredo now, they haven’t always been that way.
Born in Uvalde,
Texas, Alfredo and two brothers, Victor Jr. and Marcus, grew up in a very poor
family. His mother and father, both hard
workers, did their best to provide, but the family was without some of the
luxuries other might take for granted. Caballero
remember winters as a boy when his mother would have to boil pots of water on
the stove in their trailer home to fill the bathtub so he and his brothers
could bathe.
Paying the bills
was a family affair. Since the age of
four, Alfredo and his brothers would help their father, a mechanic, service
freight trucks on Saturdays. Not an easy
task to begin with, the Caballero boys would have to travel all over southern
Texas to service every big rig in Uvalde, Del Rio, and Eagle Pass, sometimes
clocking 17-hour days. During hurricane
season, the trucks would travel distances close to a thousand miles in a single
day, bringing supplies to affected areas.
The boys and their father would be forced to grease down the engines
while they were still scalding hot from the truck’s long journeys, as the
drivers did not have time to wait for them to cool before disembarking again. To this day, Alfredo will invite you to try
to find a piece of skin on his hand that is pinchable. His palms are tough and course from years of
abuse at the hands of scorching engine grease.
The job would
begin before sunrise and finish long, long after sunset. One occasion that stands out in Alfredo’s
memories is when he, his father, and his brothers worked so late into the next
night that his brother Marcus fell asleep on the hood of a truck in the midst
of washing the windshield. Alfredo shook
him awake and they continued on until four or five in the morning when
Alfredo’s mother came and insisted the boys stop and come home to sleep. Alfredo’s father continued on to finish the
job.
The baseball field
was an escape for Alfredo, though even there the playing field was still not
level.
The Raleys were a
prominent family in Uvalde, and like the Caballeros, they had three sons, all
of whom excelled in sports. Terry Raley,
boys’ father, had been a minor league baseball player in the Toronto Blue Jays
farm system during the 1980s. In Uvalde,
Terry Raley would coach a little league team that featured the eldest brothers
from each family, Russell Raley and Marcus Caballero. Both Russell and Marcus were great
shortstops, but Terry always gave the position to his son, and Marcus was relegated
to right field.
Upset that Marcus
never had a chance to play his best position, Victor Sr. decided to coach his
own team the following season. Victor
Sr. had run track as a child, but had never played baseball and knew virtually
nothing about the sport. In fact,
Alfredo was taught how to throw by his mother.
The team that
Victor Sr. assembled, the Reds, was comprised of mostly Mexican children who
had never played on an organized team before.
They had mostly played stickball, as they had been too poor to afford
little league. A rag-tag bunch, they
were in stark contrast to the Raleys’ team, the Rangers, who were decked out in
new jerseys and hats, and had the top of the line bats and helmets. The Reds wore standard issue uniforms and all
pitched in to buy the team one good bat.
The Rangers used Rawlings gloves, and the Reds bought their mitts at Walmart.
On top of the
economic disparity between the two teams, there was another obvious difference:
all of the Rangers’ players were white, and nearly all of the Reds players were
of Mexican descent.
Though Alfredo
says that he never experienced any overt racism, it was clear that, growing up
in Uvalde, race relations were tense.
Walking through town during baseball season, Alfredo overheard a white
woman, whom he actually knew, talking about the little league teams. To a friend, she was accusing the Reds of
being a racist team that only accepted Hispanics. Upon noticing Alfredo and realizing that he
had heard her rant, she became embarrassed and tried to smooth over her
comments, but the damage had been done.
Despite their
lower socio-economic status, inferior equipment, and a coach that didn’t know
the sport, the Reds went on to win three consecutive little league
championships behind Alfredo’s pitching, and his brothers’ play.
In high school,
Alfredo would be teammates with Russell Raley, but the old rivalry lingered,
and their relationship was not always the best.
Raley and another player from the old Rangers teams, Chase Gerdes,
formed there own clique which created tension within the team.
While the Raleys
and Gerdes were being recruited by big schools like Baylor, the University of
Oklahoma, and Texas A&M, Alfredo was largely overlooked. The team’s only reliable pitcher, Alfredo
would pitch the biggest games, against the toughest opponents, and be forced to
throw deep into the game, their coach not trusting anyone else. As a result of the excessive workload,
Alfredo would often struggle in the later innings of games, and often ended up
losing by a slim margin, leading scouts to question his skill.
After pitching one
season at Alvin Junior College, Alfredo transferred to division two University
of the Incarnate Word, where he would have a turbulent, though successful,
college career.
Brooks Raley made
his major league debut with the Chicago Cubs this past season. Cory, the youngest of the brothers, was
drafted by the Cleveland Indians but turned down a pro contract to play at
Texas A&M on a scholarship. Russell
Raley, the eldest brother, briefly played in the minor leagues for the New York
Yankees before retiring due to injury.
After
bouncing around independent ball for a season after college, Alfredo found a
home in Alpine. He was the 2011 Pecos
League Pitcher of the Year as a starter, and in 2012, was moved to a closer’s
role, where he was dominant and helped the Cowboys win their first Pecos League
championship. He was also selected to
represent Alpine on the all-star team in both seasons. At the end of the season this year, he was
promoted to the San Angelo Colts of the North American baseball league, taking
a significant step up in the independent baseball ranks.
The
situation off the field has improved for the rest of the Caballero family, as
well. Gone are the 17 hour work days,
touring southern Texas to service every truck in the area. Victor Caballero Sr. signed a lucrative
contract with one of Texas’ largest power companies, and is widely regarded as
the best electrical mechanic around. The
Caballero bought a plot of land in Uvalde, and built themselves a new house. The construction of their home, like their
early service work and little league baseball play, was a complete family
effort. Marcus Caballero, having been a
graphic design student, designed the blue prints for the entire home. Different cousins and uncles helped with the
sheet rock and roofing and plumbing.
Caballero will
return to San Angelo for next season, and is expected to be the anchor at the
end of their bullpen. Though he may be a
year or two older than the ideal prospect, there are few pitchers that have the
makeup and poise that Alfredo possesses – and can throw a fastball in the
mid-90s. It hasn’t always been an easy
road Caballero, but this may only be the beginning his baseball journey.
