SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico \u2014 Two and a half months before the start of the World Baseball Classic returned to Puerto Rico for the first time in 13 years, artist Roberto Biaggi took his Sharpie to a 1,000-square-foot wall at Hiram Bithorn Stadium and started tracing the faces of the Puerto Rican baseball legends he loves.<\/p>\n
One of the eight he drew, before filling their outlines with broken tiles as part of a stadium renovation project, only recently completed his playing career. He won\u2019t be eligible for the Hall of Fame for another two years.<\/p>\n
But Biaggi knows baseball. He doesn\u2019t need a crystal ball to be certain that stalwart St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina will be immortalized in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 2028 alongside six already-inducted Hall of Famers featured in his \u201cEternos\u201d mosaic.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you gotta be gutsy,\u201d Biaggi said.<\/p>\n
Baseball writers have proved him right once before.<\/p>\n
On the same January day this year\u2019s voting results were announced, he had just placed the final tiles for the illustration of newly-elected Hall of Famer Carlos Beltr\u00e1n. The only element of Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s election process he couldn\u2019t predict was which hat the outfielder would ultimately choose \u2014 so, on Beltr\u00e1n\u2019s request early in the mosaic development, he went with Team Puerto Rico\u2019s logo.<\/p>\n
Beltr\u00e1n appreciated Biaggi\u2019s boldness, but he was nevertheless touched to see himself depicted amongst his homeland\u2019s greats.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018What am I doing on that wall?\u2019 You ask yourself that question,\u201d he said. \u201cNot because I didn\u2019t have the career, just because I\u2019m so humble about what I\u2019m living right now. It\u2019s such a blessing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biaggi fell in love with the sport as a kid during the 1980s and \u201990s, largely considered the golden era of baseball on the island. Fans like him got to watch the likes of Rub\u00e9n Sierra, Benito Santiago, Juan Gonz\u00e1lez and the Alomar brothers start MLB careers that would last more than 15 years. They saw the rise of some of the island\u2019s top baseball exports \u2014 catchers\u00a0Iv\u00e1n Rodr\u00edguez, Jorge Posada and the Molina brothers \u2014 and celebrated as Carlos Delgado unseated Hall of Fame countryman Orlando Cepeda for most home runs hit by a Puerto Rican.<\/p>\n
So when the mayor of San Juan approached him with a proposal to create a mosaic on a wall behind first base to complete renovations of the island\u2019s largest stadium, Biaggi jumped at the chance to put his mark on the 64-year-old building \u2014 and inspire future generations of ballplayers and Boricuas alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey inspired all of us, in every (career) field pretty much, to aspire to something gigantic like them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It took Biaggi and a crew of four roughly 10 weeks of nearly-everyday work to install 20,000 pieces of broken ceramic tiles. Last week, when four of the living baseball players featured in the piece saw it for the first time before pool play in the Classic, their reactions validated the painstaking process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know my art is pretty badass,\u201d said Biaggi, who has been creating mosaics as public art across Puerto Rico and abroad since 2002. \u201cBut to hear that from Pudge (Rodr\u00edguez) makes it a hell of a lot different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The artwork depicts right-handed pitcher Hiram Bithorn, who, in 1942, became the first Puerto Rican-born player in the majors, at one end. On the other is Roberto Clemente, the first Latin American player elected to the Hall of Fame. Between the two are the island\u2019s living Hall of Famers: Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Alomar, Rodr\u00edguez, Edgar Mart\u00ednez and Beltr\u00e1n.<\/p>\n
And, of course, prospective member Molina.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to the HOF,\u201d Mart\u00ednez said in Spanish. \u201cIt\u2019s very good that he\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico \u2014 Two and a half months before the start of the World Baseball Classic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,1231,72364],"class_list":["post-519076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}