K-Rod paying back his aging, ailing mentor

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- The rehabilitation of Francisco Rodriguez did not begin with last year's apology to his teammates. Nor did it start this winter with anger-management courses mandated by a Queens courthouse.

As K-Rod would tell you, all of that -- stemming from the assault of his girlfriend's father last August -- has represented the latest growth spurt in his personal development, a maturation process that broke ground in a dusty sandlot in Caracas, Venezuela, 24 years ago.

Back then, at age 5, Rodriguez had much simpler concerns than the legal and contractual issues caused by his right fist. Raised by his grandparents in a two-bedroom apartment shared by eight others, K-Rod couldn't scrape up the $3 tuition for the baseball academy -- or the bus fare for the 90-minute ride back home to the Caracas suburb of Macarao.

Thanks to Graciano Ravelo, the founder of the 35-year-old academy, he didn't have to. Ravelo picked up the youngster's expenses, and for the past six years Rodriguez has returned the favor in financing the academy, which is named after his mentor. K-Rod donates everything -- shoes, gloves, helmets, bats, uniforms -- so the field that nurtured his dreams can do the same for future generations.

"Hopefully, by me helping one of those kids, you never know what's going to happen, where they're going to be 10 years from now," Rodriguez said. "They might sign as a professional ballplayer. Hopefully, when I'm done playing, somebody can come out and keep continuing to do that for the academy."

It's more of a struggle for Ravelo to be on that field now. At 77, he has survived surgery for colon cancer -- with financial help from Rodriguez -- and is now battling cancer of the liver.

Still, he remains focused on promoting baseball among the Caracas youth, and his dream is to set up more opportunities for the younger kids, such as T-ball and soft-toss leagues. Rodriguez plays a crucial part in that development, sending an endless supply of baseballs in all sizes for the different age groups.

"There is no way we would have the money to supply that kind of stuff," Ravelo said through an interpreter. "It's all stuff that we can't buy."

Along with K-Rod's grandfather, who always pushed the young Rodriguez in sports, Ravelo was instrumental in launching K-Rod's big-league career. "He invited me to the academy and didn't want me to pay a dime," Rodriguez said. "It was a gift and I feel blessed for that."

Ravelo, a former scout for the Royals and Rangers, said he first noticed Rodriguez because of his "love for school" and a discipline forged by the grandparents who raised him. When Rodriguez's grandmother first brought him to the academy, Ravelo could see K-Rod was special. "When it came to baseball, he just had this natural ability," Ravelo said. "Before he even learned to pitch, he could do everything."

After 25 years as a player and coach with the Tiburones (Sharks) and the Caracas Lions of the Venezuelan professional leagues, Ravelo has become a baseball institution there.

So has the academy, which despite its miniature field always felt like the biggest place in the world to Rodriguez. In reality, Rodriguez estimated it to be no larger than the infield of a regulation diamond, without the grass.

Rodriguez said that every year hundreds of children learn the game in that modest outdoor classroom, then play in tournaments that could someday lead to the Little League World Series. And for a prodigy like Rodriguez, whose talents were recognized from the moment he first picked up a baseball, the academy served as that springboard.

"The facility is not like a lot of people expect," Rodriguez said. "It's really small. On the field we would take ground balls, fly balls and run the bases. To hit, we'd have to go in the cages. You could hit on the field until you were about 12, then it was too small."

Ravelo remembers Rodriguez from those years, but he also is cognizant of Rodriguez's current problems. Not surprisingly, K-Rod's mentor says there are elements to the story that people don't know. But rather than get into the details, Ravelo just says he is confident that Rodriguez will have the strength to get through it.

"I had no doubt he would be in the big leagues," Ravelo said. "I've always known him to be very disciplined and he is the same way now. He will be OK."