That little kid from the Le Pedrera barrio in Maracay, Venezuela, the one who used to race out of school every day straight to the dirt ball fields, the one who at 10 years old was hitting mushy baseballs 300 feet with his mother’s wood softball bat, the one whose talent was so obvious, so extraordinary, that his parents shelved their own careers to support and chaperone his dreams of playing baseball in Las Grandes Ligas — that kid is still very much inside of Miguel Cabrera.
It manifests itself in the unbridled, childlike joy he brings to the ballpark every day, even at age 40 and in the final season of his Hall of Fame-assured, 21-year career.