SAN DIEGO - Odubel Herrera Sr. is a farmer in Venezuela, a country so ravaged by economic crises that its residents ransack supermarkets for food and jump borders to find medicine. He grows guava and passion fruits in San Jose, a town in eastern Venezuela. He looks after some cows. And, whenever he can, he watches his 24-year-old son play baseball.
The elder Herrera once played. "I was the second baseman in a local league," he said, "and I was pretty good. I was fast." He laughed because this was a surreal moment, a 50-year-old farmer from a foreign land surrounded by the National League's best players in a hotel ballroom.