TAMPA — Oswaldo Cabrera has not watched the replay, and if he has any control over it, he never will.
That night in Seattle last May — when an awkward slide into home plate left him lying on the ground writhing in pain with a broken left ankle and ligament damage around it — remains “horrible” in Cabrera’s mind.
But nearly 10 months later, hours before the first time he returned to the field for a game in his Grapefruit League debut Friday night, the Yankees utilityman wanted to remember that night for a different reason — for the teammates and coaches who visited him in the hospital later that night and the outpouring of support from fans and people back in his native Venezuela, lifting the spirits of the man who is usually the one doing that for others.
“That was one of the most beautiful things that happened that night,” Cabrera said Friday afternoon. “They did a really nice job showing me the love, the support that I really needed in that moment. I’m so glad for having that.”
Aaron Judge, who visited the Seattle hospital along with Anthony Volpe and Aaron Boone, remembers Cabrera having a smile on his face despite the physical and mental pain he was in.
“He knew it was a rough road ahead of him, but if anybody was going to attack it head on, it’s going to be that guy,” Judge said before he left camp for the WBC.
“He’s, on what you might think is the worst day, still the best person,” added Boone.
Even for the effervescent Cabrera, though, the gruesome injury tested his psyche. There were obvious physical challenges he had to overcome in the months since — following surgery that inserted a plate and seven screws to stabilize his ankle — but that was not the hardest part of the rehab process.
“Staying positive, staying mentally strong,” he said. “Having that mentality of, ‘Keep going, that this is nothing hard, we can come back from this and this is not a big deal.’ I think that [was] a big challenge I had this offseason.”
While Cabrera was fielding ground balls by the end of last season, he entered camp still trying to knock off some rust, with the Yankees wanting to see the last bit of burst in how he was moving.
Over the last few weeks, though, he showed the improvement the Yankees needed to see, leading to the final box that needed to be checked off before he could play in Friday’s game: sliding.
Cabrera had been thinking about this since the night he got hurt. He had slid hundreds, if not thousands, of times before in his career without issue until that ninth inning in Seattle, when he ran home on Judge’s sacrifice fly but had to make a late pivot to avoid the throw up the line and his ankle gave out on him.
“I’m going to try to pick him up and he’s like, ‘No, no, no, no, no,’ ” Judge said. “Then I saw what was going on.”
And so began the long road that led Cabrera to a back field earlier this week, when he finally had to get over the hump and slide again.
“For me, it was just go over there, try to lose my fear — because obviously it’s a fear from the last time, but trying to not put anything on my mind to make me feel like I’m afraid to do that,” he said.
Once he did, Cabrera was cleared for takeoff, generating a wave of emotions. He described his anticipation for Friday’s exhibition like it was his MLB debut or his first World Series appearance.
It still remains to be seen whether Cabrera will be ready to start the season on time, but in his mind, there is little doubt.
“Absolutely it is [possible],” Cabrera said. “I didn’t talk about this with anybody in the organization, the coaching staff or the manager, but I’m working in a way to make the Opening Day [roster].”
