A classroom is probably one of the last places you would ever expect to find a former Major League Baseball pitcher, and a 28-year-old World Series champion.
Like many of his former Boston Red Sox and Long Beach State teammates throughout the years, Abe Alvarez was expected to enjoy an illustrious career in the major leagues after the Red Sox selected him in the second round with the 49th overall pick in the 2003 draft. But it didn’t turn out that way.
For Alvarez, though, going from cheering mobs at Fenway Park to taking history courses at LBSU has been a blessing in disguise.
Since last August, he has been finishing his last three semesters so that he can earn a bachelor’s degree in history in the upcoming fall.
The uphill battle
Like any other sport, one setback could alter the course of a career, and in Alvarez’s case, it was a broken left ankle he sustained off the field in Aug. 2006.
The injury would sideline him for the remaining four months of the season, but what he didn’t know is that it would end up being his last in a major-league uniform.
“I think [the injury] definitely slowed the process down,” Alvarez said. “And the way the Boston [Red Sox] organization looked at me as a prospect or what my outcome would be if I stayed in the organization, but it didn’t change my way of thinking. … I never thought [my career] was over just because I got hurt.”
Alvarez would return to play after four months following intensive rehabilitation, and was sent to the Red Sox’s Triple-A minor league affiliate team in Pawtucket, R.I., to get back into top form.
It was never quite the same, though. Red Sox management wasn’t willing to take another chance on him in the majors with all the up and coming talent vying for the same position.
“You learn that it’s a business right away,” Alvarez said. “Pressure is pressure, and that’s why we’re athletes. I dealt with it and it’s a part of competition because you’re competing against yourself and you’re competing against other guys who want the same job you want.”
He would go on to play for the minors for two more years while remaining under contract with the Red Sox, but was released in May 2008.
Alvarez then competed in the independent circuit, before traveling overseas to play for an Italian league in the 2009 season with hopes of earning a contract from a major-league team.
But the phones weren’t ringing.
“It was tough for me to swallow,” Alvarez said. “I had a lot of fun and it was a great experience [playing in Italy], but it’s not minor-league ball or major-league ball.”
Alvarez then entered a period of uncertainty in his life when he no longer knew if playing baseball would be in his future. After all, it had been nearly four years since the 6-2 left hander pitched in the big leagues, and teams weren’t showing any interest.
An opportunity of a lifetime
His life took an unexpected turn, though, a little over a year ago after a phone call.
On the other end of the line was LBSU baseball head coach Troy Buckley, who served as an assistant pitching coach to Alvarez during his three years with the Dirtbags.
Buckley then made an offer to Alvarez he couldn’t refuse: an opportunity to serve as an undergraduate assistant pitching coach to the Dirtbags.
In exchange, Alvarez would receive a full scholarship, so that he could finish pursuing his degree.
“When you look at the history of [the Dirtbags’] program, you gotta keep them connected to it,” Buckley said. “Any time you get somebody that can benefit the program, has played here, and understands what it’s all about, that’s a huge deal.”
It wouldn’t take long for Alvarez to make his decision.
“I jumped on it,” Alvarez said. “I saw it as a way to finish my education and get a degree because I know how important that is and I don’t know if that opportunity to play [baseball] will ever come again.”
Although Alvarez is still uncertain if he’ll return as an assistant next year since he’s graduating in December, he hopes to spend more time in the classroom, except this time, he wants to be the one handing out assignments.
“With my degree, I’d like to get my teaching credentials,” Alvarez said. “My wife is a second-grade teacher, but I would lean more towards [teaching] history in high school and maybe coaching [baseball], too because it’s an age when you can really influence kids to do better.”
Alvarez already appears to have a head start on that.
“He’s very knowledgeable and I think his [coaching] presentation is very consistent,” Buckley said. “There’s no highs and there’s no lows [with his personality]. He’s just a really steady human being.”
The struggle
Steady is one way to describe him, but fearless could be another.
That’s because Alvarez has had to overcome adversity his entire life.
But you probably wouldn’t know it unless you looked closely past the crooked bill of his baseball cap that he wears to the left side. What you would find is that Alvarez is blind in his left eye and the reason he wears his cap to the side is to the balance the lighting in his right eye.
It began as an infection he suffered at birth, and even after his mother tried several eye medications to treat his condition, Alvarez has been legally blind in one eye his entire life.
“I had to make adjustments when I was a kid,” Alvarez said. “My mom would put an eye patch on my good eye to strengthen my weak eye. … I mean, I’ve tried the glasses; I’ve tried the contacts. … But [my condition] never affected me when I was on the [pitching] mound.”
That’s just a part of Alvarez’s journey.
As a child, he grew up in Maywood, Calif., where crime was prevalent and it was common to hear gunshots and sirens through the window of his bedroom, which he shared with his older brother and sister.
Gangs used to loiter within blocks of his house, which was robbed on more than one occasion. It was a struggle for his parents to start a family after emigrating from Mexico to California at a young age.
His parents did their best to provide a secure upbringing for him and his siblings, but the job market was scarce, and at one point, Alvarez’s father had faced the nightmare of being unemployed.
Even after his father landed a job and moved the family to a larger home in Fontana, Calif., there was no escaping the unfortunate reality that crime existed everywhere.
Alvarez remembered being in high school when he and his family took a weekend trip to Mexico to visit relatives. When they returned, their house had been robbed of everything.
“It was tough because you think of home as being a safe place,” Alvarez said. “And then you come home and all your stuff is gone. You don’t feel safe at home again.”
From his childhood dreams of playing professional baseball to being on the cusp of earning a college degree, Alvarez has never let any bumps in the road stall him from fulfilling his dreams.
If anything, he has become a stronger person because of it.
“I don’t look at it as if I had setbacks and it was just the way I was brought up,” Alvarez said. “I was surrounded by the right people and made a great decision to come to [LBSU] where I was able to get an education and learned the game [of baseball] better, which helped me plan for the way life is.”
Not only did he build up his understanding of the game of baseball at LBSU, but he also flourished as a pitcher.
Apart from recording an overall record of 23-5, Alvarez struck out 195 batters. After pitching just three innings as a freshman in 2001, he worked his way to a spot in the starting rotation.
As a sophomore, he dominated the conference en route to earning the Big West Pitcher of the Year award to go with second-team All-America honors.
Alvarez followed that up the next season and repeated as Big West Pitcher of the Year, sharing the honor with teammate Jered Weaver, who now pitches for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
That same season, Alvarez was also named to the All-America second-team again, and led LBSU to its first-ever Super Regional appearance in the NCAA tournament.
Following the 2003 draft, he received a $700,000 signing bonus from the Red Sox.
That summer, he pitched 19 scoreless innings in the minor league for the Spinners — a Single-A affiliate of the Red Sox before making the jump to the Double-A level the next season with the Portland Sea Dogs.
A dream come true
That is until one Tuesday night in July when Alvarez received news that his hard work had come to fruition.
The Sea Dogs were on the road in Norwich, Conn., when manager Ron Johnson called Alvarez into his office to tell him that he would be boarding a flight to Boston to make his major-league debut days later against the Baltimore Orioles at Fenway Park.
The 21-year-old couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“I was shaking,” Alvarez said as he cracked a smile. “It was kind of nerve wracking, but it was the most awesome feeling ever.”
Although he surrendered five runs and eight hits in five innings against the Orioles, having the opportunity to fly his parents out from California to Boston to watch him play in the major leagues was a feeling like no other.
“It was a dream come true,” Alvarez said with a smile. “Since I was a 5-year-old kid, I was saying I want to be a major-league player and then I actually got to do it.”
Alvarez also received an $8,100-per-month salary to go with his signing bonus for making the 40-man roster, and became the fastest player in Red Sox history to move from short-season Single-A ball in the minor leagues to starting a game in the majors at the age of 21.
To top it off, at the end of his rookie year, he became the youngest player in franchise history to win a World Series ring just 10 days after his 22nd birthday.
No pressure, ready?
Even with all the success and notoriety Alvarez has acquired, Buckley said perception is far from reality when it comes to his personality.
“[The attention] has never really got to him,” Buckley said. “You gotta give credit to his parents for that. They have been through plenty of adversity and they’re really important to him, and it shows by the type of person he is.
“He’s never been consumed by the ‘bling,’ the ring, or the money. He’s just got really solid core values.”
Even as Alvarez looks back on his remarkable journey and the illustrious career he could have had in the majors, he still entertains the possibility of making a comeback to baseball.
“I’m 28 and I’m still young,” Alvarez said. “I’m recently married, and I’ve talked to my wife about giving it another shot, but there’s no pressure. The main thing is to finish my degree, go from there and see where it leads me.”
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