Molina’s success long in making 11 HOURS AGO • BY DERRICK GOOLD
[email protected] 314-340-8285 CINCINNATI • When Yadier Molina still was a teenager, his father, Benjamin, placed him on an amateur team in Puerto Rico that pitted his youngest son against men 10 years older and 10 years more mature and forced him to find a way to make sure they weren’t also 10 years better. The team was the Hatillo Tigres. Benjamin had another predator in mind. “I threw him with the lions,” he would say. That was the explanation that Benjamin gave Bengie and Jose Molina, the older brothers, when they asked their dad why young Yadier was urged to play in one of Puerto Rico’s top men’s amateur leagues before even being eligible for the major-league draft. “Oh, I’m going to throw him with the lions and make him grow up,” Bengie Molina recalled his father saying. “And he did. Yadi did. That’s why I think he’s good. He had to be a veteran at a young age. When he came over here it was nothing. I think that’s what started it, at least. You have to grow up quick in that league. That’s the way I saw it. That was the first step to where he is now.” Where he is now is the MVP-caliber catcher and compass for the team with the best record in baseball. The Cardinals often go where Molina points them. If it’s not shepherding a rookie-infused rotation to the lowest ERA in the National League, it’s providing as the leading hitter, often in the middle of the lineup.