I told Yonder Alonso that I had only one problem with writing a story about him — that whatever I put together would not be nearly as good as his “Letter to My Younger Self” that he penned for “The Players’ Tribune” on April 24.
In that article, the Oakland A’s first baseman detailed his family’s escape from Cuba to Miami when he was 10 and all of the financial hardships that followed. Many of the details were quite moving, and one in particular stood out:
Alonso, while on a baseball scholarship at the University of Miami, sometimes would find his father waiting at the team plane, late at night at the end of a road trip.