01x10 - Nelson Figueroa & His Baseball Origin Story

[bunniefuu]

after 150 years baseball has more than

earned its title of america's favorite

pastime

giants among men scrappy underdogs

thrilling victories

crushing defeats baseball's stories

rival the greatest comics

and just like superheroes every baseball

player has a defining arc

often just as grand and awe-inspiring a

mythic quest to become a champion

a legendary hero looking for redemption

rivalry

renewal and even a little revenge it's

the stuff

epic heroes are made up mel said and

with a 20-year playing career spanning a

dozen teams

on multiple continents my buddy and

former major league pitcher nelson

figueroa has a story

more epic than most i'm joe casada i

tell stories for a living welcome

to marvel storyboards

[Music]

[Applause]

you may know best fritz beaches and

world famous hot dogs

but for nelson coney island's home

nelson's lifelong dream was always to

play for his hometown team

the new york mets and as a die-hard mets

fan i've been following a story for

years

what was it like growing up here well

everyone says you know great place to

visit yeah but they wouldn't want to

live here

i grew up here and i loved it i had the

best childhood

i grew up in the penthouse apartment in

the projects

which means it's the top floor so the

penthouse is actually 16th floor over

there so on the back side of that

building right there that i live in the

top floor there

this neighborhood in itself we've kind

of always had those street pickup games

i wasn't the biggest kid i didn't throw

the hardest i wasn't the fastest

so my desire and my belief that

i think since i was six years old it was

like what do you want to be when you

grow up

professional baseball yeah this was our

stadium if you look it kind of has that

little stadium feel to it there were

bases

and you had to run the bases so first

base was running over there used to be a

tree right there you run to the tree

second base was up there third base you

had to come back over by this wall and

then you had to run home so we ran the

bases and we played our

stickball games in the middle of this

park so there's a wall over here

that as i got older i grew up throwing

to that strike zone and so you draw the

box and then you draw a box within the

box and try and get perfect at

being able to do that well when i got

older and nobody wanted to play catch

with me anymore i used to come down and

throw against the wall with the hardball

and

wind up breaking like little pieces of

the wall and then the housing authority

told me i was not allowed to do that

anymore

that wall right there that's what we

used to throw up against there and so

that to me was

where kind of i honed my craft and it

was one of the times that you start

realizing okay

i am a little different i throw the ball

really hard for a kid my size

and then from there of course you go to

high school college and then

major leagues you also have

a great love for for comics and comic

books yes where did that start did it

start

here as well oh yeah it started here

because my uncle lived with us when i

was growing up fridays were paydays and

he come home with that brown paper bag

with comics in it

and i remember getting into comics with

him and just falling in love with comics

the one that sticks out the most for me

was the secret wars yeah and when

spiderman got the black costume for the

first time the symbiote was born and i

remember

that was where kind of everything

changed for me as far as comics i fell

in love with them

trying to take on superhero personas

because guys like spiderman were my size

it's such a spiderman s story spiderman

was probably the first superhero

who sometimes would lose to the villain

right but what was important was what

happened afterwards right what did he do

with that loss

that really makes your partner special

thriving through the adversity

we've always rooted for the underdog

yeah my dad had instilled that in me

early

that nothing is given to you everything

is earned and

he loved his hard-nosed mets players you

were drafted by the mets

how many years did it take for you to

get on the field at shea stadium so i

got drafted in 1995

i didn't step on the field as i met at

shea stadium

until 2008. so that's 13 years

[Applause]

all right mr major leaguer let's say

we'll go play some ball

[Music]

so we're about to go on the field your

first eventually game

as soon as i got out there and i saw how

massive the scale was of everything i

just

had my mouth wide open and i never

forget luis gonzalez walks over to me

and he just goes hey kid

welcome to the big leagues

[Music]

right here we are and the crowd goes

wild before we get started

you got to warm me up what we want to do

is you just want to kind of start moving

the body around start getting some blood

flow into the shoulders into the upper

body

okay now that we've warmed up the body

we're loose yeah play some catch

okay let's go

[Music]

so you get traded to arizona where does

your path take you from there you think

okay i'm going to be with arizona for 20

years

i have a big league career that lasted

all of three starts i get traded

and i wind up going over to philadelphia

and you usually think a major deal like

that this is it

now philadelphia is going to want me

there for 15 to 20 years well that

lasted all of one season

milwaukee brewers pick me up so then i

go from philadelphia to milwaukee

in that little span of over a little bit

over a year i moved eight times

from wow minor leagues to the major

leagues i had no idea that that was

going to lead me to going all around the

world

right but i had the opportunity to

travel yeah it wasn't because i had

money it was because i had a skill i

could play baseball and i wanted to use

it as a vehicle to get anywhere and so

i got to travel all around the world i

wound up playing in taiwan

mexico venezuela puerto rico

dominican republic japan and

you know wherever baseball takes me

that's where i'll go all those countries

with the goal of getting back yeah the

goal was always to get back

i got a phone call from the mets and

said we like to bring you into big

league camp sign you to a minor league

deal

that's where it all started over again

when you're at a stadium like that where

people are just going

haywire you're on the mound you're in

the zone

do you hear it when you've got 46 000

people yelling at you

you just feel that roar yeah it's kind

of like my super power to be able to

block it out

to be able to focus more so than anybody

else on the field

wanna throw me some yeah let's do it all

right let's see what you've got for

gorilla

start off nice and easy

oh okay so remember all those times you

sat back at tv

i could hit that pitch you know you

can't walk in this

[Music]

oh that's for real oh

wonder boy is down

well done brother well done

i told you you'd take a souvenir home

yeah well you gotta sign it for me later

it was so cool you coming back and it

was with the home team all right the

team that your dad

taught you to root for and that day

right april 11 2008

oh yeah you're there i'm watching this

game i don't you know

who's the pitcher nelson who where did

this guy come from

drafted by the mets and you know went

around the world

would not give up the dream wanted to

come back and play major league baseball

and here he is local kid

coney island grew up a mets fan and

there in the stands

is his dad i don't think he sat down the

entire game

there's got to be thousands upon

thousands of people watching this game

who've had that

fantasy but there you are living it this

was my turn to do it

the buzz that you got through your body

the energy that you feel and that was

one of the the best feelings i've ever

had in the major leagues and i just

remember

saying to myself just taking the moment

and it was one of those

movie type settings people from my

neighborhood people i grew up with

teachers

everyone just wanted to take part in

this and it meant so much to me because

i had been in the big leagues before but

this was different so many of us sort of

dream of that having that moment you

know

you actually are one of the people that

gets to live that for somebody who got

signed as a 30th round draft pick for

2500

to have a 19-year playing career i

wouldn't trade it because

the that winding road there was so many

experiences that i wouldn't have had had

i

just been with one team and had you know

amazing success and been in that same

place all the time

that's what really has made me who i am

throughout this whole

saga aside from being a great baseball

player i

just heard you you have an artistic

sensibility i started out as tracing

all your work you know showing it to mom

and dad and here it is and i just

fell in love with the ability to put the

pen or pencil to paper and be able to

create

all these different worlds and just to

be able to escape baseball does that for

me

comics are sort of a fantasy world

baseball you know for those of us that

don't play is a fantasy world right we

live vicariously through these

characters to the players on the field

what was your favorite character though

i think what really nailed it for me was

seeing spider-man putting on a mat hat

[Music]

i might have been a kid who never got

out of brooklyn and all i could think

about was

where could i go next and all because i

could throw a baseball

thank you so much for doing this thank

you but one thing you broke my back

i'm gonna send you a bill unless you

sign it absolutely okay

okay so spending the day with nelson

might be the closest i'll get to the

majors but at least i could say i got

some solid hits off the first pitcher to

throw a complete game shutout at city

field

and more importantly nelson reminded me

that sometimes the best storytellers are

the ones who have persevered to live

their own dreams

inspiring us to go out and chase our own

[Music]

[Music]

you