Baseball icon Miguel Cabrera soaks up a lot of lasts at World Baseball Classic

Miami – On April 23, 1939, Alex Carrasquel, a right-handed pitcher for the Washington Senators, was summoned from the bullpen in the fourth inning of a game to face Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees. Carrasquel was the first Venezuelan-born player to appear in a Major League Baseball game and 461 players born in the baseball-crazed South American country have followed in his footsteps, according to Baseball Reference.

None, though, has been better than a right-handed batter who made his major league debut on June 20, 2003. Miguel Cabrera, a skinny 20-year-old prospect who homered that day and helped the Florida Marlins win the World Series later that season, has been crushing baseballs ever since. But the wear and tear of 2,699 regular season games has taken its toll, and there is only so much more Cabrera’s cranky right knee can take. Over the winter, Cabrera, the designated hitter of the perpetually rebuilding Detroit Tigers, reiterated that 2023 would be the last season of his career.

So as Cabrera, 39, gets ready to hang up his spikes, he is soaking up a lot of lasts, starting with his fifth and final World Baseball Classic. Cabrera, who was selected as the team’s captain, said he hoped that this farewell lap would begin with a title in the quadrennial tournament, which Venezuela has never won, despite his participation in every edition since the event began in 2006.