Royals catcher Sal Perez grew up with dirt floors in his childhood home in Venezuela, where economic chaos and the accompanying despair now necessitates that Perez – like countryman and teammate Alcides Escobar — have bodyguards when he returns.
First baseman Eric Hosmer is the son of a Miami firefighter who was playing baseball on travel teams by the time he was 11 years old, and third baseman Mike Moustakas grew up in a Los Angeles suburb with a batting cage in the front yard.
Greg Holland is from a trailer park in Marion, N.C.; Jarrod Dyson came out of the projects of McComb, Miss.