A Message for New York

There’s this Dominican saying. It’s one of my favorites. It goes something like, “Tanto nadar para morir en la orilla.”

It basically means, “So much swimming just to die on the shore.” It’s about the hard work somebody has to put in just to get a chance to accomplish their dreams.

I thought about that saying a lot when I hurt my oblique a few months ago. You know, last year when I came up and felt so much love from you all, it was just the best feeling in the world. And to hurt my elbow like I did … to have to get surgery and miss so much time … it was crushing. I remember looking around Yankee Stadium when I got hurt and thinking like, Man, is this it? Will I ever get back here?

But that fear faded. And I committed myself to my rehab. I was getting close to being back a few months ago. Things felt good. I was ready. And bang … there goes my oblique. Just … just no way, man. Why me? Why me? A few days after the injury … I was just bored. I was on social media scrolling and scrolling, and I saw the most amazing comments from the fans.

“This is nothing. You’re gonna be back so soon.” “You’re gonna be even better after this.” “We can’t wait to see you again!!” All this love, man — for real. It was like … I felt it straight in my heart, you know?

And it just flipped a switch in me like, Nah … I am done feeling bad for myself. I’m done thinking I’m cursed. I’m done with all that negativity.

I don’t know what the future holds.… But I can promise you one thing. 

I didn’t come this far just to die on the shore.

If you had seen me when I was eight years old … brother, you would never have guessed I would be a Yankee one day. 

I was a benchwarmer. 

I’d stand against the fence of the dugout, just hoping that the coach would put me in. It’s kind of strange, but I used to rub dirt on my jersey when the game ended so I could tell my dad I played. He would give me 50, or sometimes 100 pesos when I left the house to go play. It was only a few bucks, but for me that was a lot of money. It was a big deal for him to give me that. And, damn, it made me sad to leave the house with that money  in my pocket and come home with a clean uniform. So I’d get some dirt on my hands and rub it up and down the jersey and pants. I’d get home and I’d say, “Yes, I hit a double! A triple! A home run!!” And my family would smile. 

We lived in a small house in Esperanza that my mother built out of wood. I don’t know who else helped her, maybe some of her friends from the tobacco factory where she worked. But I loved our house. The roads weren’t paved and every time it rained, I couldn’t wear my tennis shoes because the mud would be so bad. My mother would clean the side of the house, and cars would drive by and splash up water and dirt onto the walls, and she’d go right back out with a bucket and make sure it looked nice. I saw how hard my parents worked, and all I really wanted was to make them proud.

I kept telling my dad how good my baseball games were going, and maybe I got a little bit carried away ... he’d see my dirty jersey and he probably thought, “Man, this kid really hustles. He’s gotta be a star!” 

So one day he told me he was taking off work to come see me play, and I was panicking. 

I was like, “Ah no, Dad, don’t worry about it. We’re playing a bad team today, it’ll be boring.” 

“No, no, I want to see you hit a home run for me.”"

Home run? Man, I didn’t even get off the bench for a bunt!

And I could see in my dad’s eyes that he was sad. 

I think he was just sad that his son wasn’t being all that he could be. And it’s funny now to tell the story…. But back then? I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what I was doing. Everybody was better than me. I had no major league dreams or anything like that … I was just one of thousands of kids playing baseball on the weekend. 

I would make these excuses not to go, like, I wasn’t feeling well or whatever. And my dad, he kind of sat me down and said: “Look, Jasson, if you want to do it — you have to do it. You have to be committed. You have to want to play. You have to make the sacrifices. And if you don’t want to, then quit.”

And I think, you know, just to hear him say that to me … it made everything a bit more clear. At that age I didn’t really understand what was needed to improve. I just took my pesos and went to catch the ball. But as I got older I started to see that, the more time I spent at the field, the more time I spent working on my game … coaches started to put me into games, and then higher and higher in the lineup. So I stopped having to rub dirt all over me after the final out. 

And when I wasn’t at the field,  I started spending more time in the street with my friends. We’d hit bottle caps with our sticks. Sometimes, if we were lucky, there’d be a ball made out of socks from my dad.

Sometimes we’d play in this part of the street that’s a bit hard to explain, but basically you wanted to hit as a righty to get the ball into left field. You just had a better chance to get a hit that way. You get it? So every day I would be pulling balls down the line. It worked for me in games, too. I was just a pretty normal, solid right-handed hitter. Then one day, I can’t remember where I saw this, but I was watching highlights Carlos González’s swing. You remember, right? Leg kick … fast hands … so smooth. He was just magic. And I’m looking at him like, Brother … I have to do that.

So I go back to our street and I go to the lefty side of the batter’s box…. I’m standing there, ready to hit. But I’m holding the bat like a righty still. And this man who lived right nearby, he comes out of his house and he goes, “No, grab it this way.” And he flipped my hands. Bam. Like that. And I just started swinging.

I cried the night before I signed with the Yankees in 2019. This is really happening.

It was so, so special, man.

That day, my family and I all went down to the Yankee complex in the Dominican. I signed the contract and there was a big presentation and all these people. It was the first time I ever spoke to a journalist. It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest.

I remember talking to my dad that day. He said, “Son, we are so happy because you’ve got what you’ve worked so hard for. But we are also grateful because you’ve changed our lives.”

My dad … my mom … they had worked for so long, for so little. Felix and Dorca. My heroes. They gave up so much to raise me and my siblings. The day I became a Yankee, we went from earth to heaven. 

But my family and I knew that the hard work was just beginning. In the Dominican, we know all the stories. We weren’t the first family to be blessed like this. Every year ballplayers get the same opportunity, and in a few years it’s all over for them. My dad always reminded me to stay humble, to stay focused. We had bigger things in mind than just signing with the Yankees. I wanted to make my mark on New York.

But life … man, it’s crazy. Covid made my minor league experience hard. Nobody knew what was happening, and just trying to stay in game shape was tough. I was in Philadelphia staying with some relatives and one of my friends down in the Dominican, May Valdez, sent me a bat, tee and a net. I probably hit 1000s of balls into that net, just praying that my time would come — that we would all get through this. Stick. Bottle caps. Socks. Balls. Tee. Net. It didn’t matter to me. I knew that if I could keep getting better, I could get to where I wanted to go.

And a few years later, in 2023, I was sitting in the cafeteria at Yankee spring training in Tampa. It was my first big league camp. I was nervous getting there, you know, with all the great players on the team. I had just got done eating lunch, and my finished plate was still on the table. I hear somebody go, “You done with that?” And I look up, and it’s Aaron Judge. He grabs my plate, takes it over and scrapes it into the garbage and puts it on the counter. I completely froze up. Like, Aaron Judge … just … cleaned my plate for me.

Maybe it sounds silly to you, but just that little gesture by him meant so much to me. I came into spring training with my tail between my legs, afraid to make a mistake. But he showed me that we’re all in it together, right? Like I was part of the pack. And, yeah, I don’t know … it just really settled me down.

I had great conversations with so many players during that month. I got to know the team. And Aaron Boone told me to stay ready for when they’d need me. I thought of that all the way until September when I got called up.

 It’s funny, when I got the call … obviously I was so excited. But I felt this weight, too. Like, OK, this is it. This is what it’s all been about. And when I joined the team in Houston, I felt it all. The excitement. The nerves. The weight.

My whole family was in the crowd. We were all one that night. I wasn’t rubbing dirt on my jersey anymore. And that first at bat, man, what a feeling…. I was so focused on my at bat that I didn’t even really care who was pitching in a way. I mean no disrespect to Justin Verlander. He’s one of the best ever. Hall of Famer. Incredible player. But I was just trying to hit the bottle cap. 

And as I was rounding first base, and that ball hit the stands…. That weight? It just disappeared. I hit second and I felt like I weighed 20 pounds. I rounded third and I was floating all the way home.

Those weeks before I got hurt, when I got to know you, Yankee fans … you guys were so amazing. Being in New York. Walking around the city. Going to Central Park. 

And playing in the Bronx for the first time… I felt your energy. Wearing the pinstripes. Hearing my name called, hitting a home run at the stadium? The best. The best. I think about getting back to that moment all the time. It’s all I want. It’s what I work for every day. Getting hurt, and getting hurt again … it just made me work harder. Because I know you can’t take anything for granted.

The deal I signed when I was 16? That was a long time ago. The home run I hit in Houston? Same thing. I don’t want to be the future, or the past. I want to be the right now. Tanto nadar para morir en la orilla.

I know this season has had its ups and downs. I get that the expectations are high. I feel the same way. To be honest, when I signed with the Yankees, the only thing I knew about them was that they were  “The best team in the world.” I don’t know if it was true at that moment, but I believed it was. And I want to help make you believe again, too.

—Jasson