Yunel Escobar

Yunel Escobar is an infielder who plays for the Atlanta Braves. Escobar is a native of Havana Cuba.

Escobar was drafted by the Braves in the 2005 draft as the 75th pick overall. There was a huge hesitation in the beginning by some major league officials to draft Escobar because he is from Cuba and the relationship that Cuba has with the United States. Former Braves GM John Schuerholz was quoted as saying "I'm not a politician," Schuerholz said. "I'm a baseball general manager. We look for baseball talent wherever we can find it. And wherever it is, we go after it.”http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/04/22/brave.hearts0428/1.html

Brayan Pena, a former Brave and best friend of Escobar, answered all the Braves questions about Escobar and whether or not the organization should take a chance on him. When Pena reassured them that he was worth the pick; Escobar became a Brave.

Escobar spent the 2006 season in Double A Mississippi with former Brave Jeff Blauser who was the manager of the club at the time and there have been rumors circulating that Blauser and Escobar did not get along which put fuel to the fire of why Escobar struggled somewhat while he was down there.

But after his stint in Mississippi, Escobar was called up and on June 2, 2007 he made his major league debut. In his first major league at bat against the Chicago Cubs, Escobar got a hit and went 2 for 4 in that game. A few days later, Escobar got his first home run ever off the Florida Marlins. http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=488862

Because of Escobar’s performance during the 2007 season at shortstop, the Braves traded Edgar Rentería to the Detroit Tigers for pitching phenom Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez.

Escobar’s success continued into 2008 and 2009. In 2009, numbers wise, was Escobar’s best year in a Braves uniform. He committed only two errors in the last third of the season and batted .299 with 14 homeruns.

Yunel Escobar has had an interesting road to the major leagues filled with triumphs and bumps along the way. Escobar has battled Cuba, Edgar Renteria for a starting position and himself at times just to get to his point in his career. But there are other sides to Yunel Escobar that you may not know about and here is just a few.

• Brayan Pena and Escobar grew up together in Cuba
• Escobar had his first lead-off homerun against the Florida Marlins
• Escobar came in sixth in 2007 for NL Rookie of the Year honors
• In 2009, Escobar had career highs in games played (141), at-bats (528), runs (89), hits (158), doubles (26), home runs (14) and RBI (76)
• Also in 2009, he was the first right hand batter to hit a homerun off of eventual Cy Young Winner Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=488862