One afternoon in the summer of 1988 I went to the EIDE Mártires de Barbados del Cotorro in the Havana capital with the purpose of seeing the phenomenon Iván Pedroso, when he was a skinny boy, not tall, with lively eyes who was jumping around in that sandbox. that today would have been an explosion on the networks.
Iván didn't speak much so I had to turn to his coach, Milan Matos, the same one who took him to the top of the world. At the end I observed a big boy, with a tender look, very talkative, brandishing a hammer according to his age.
And who are you? I asked him: Yosmel Montes, I throw the hammer and I am going to be great, I am going to do something great.
I interviewed him, he gave me a very good interview, pleasant, enthusiastic. Over time I saw Yosmelito being part of the national athletics team, but his words about him did not materialize. He couldn't achieve his goals and one day I stopped seeing him. When I asked about him they told me that he had been discharged.
It hurt me because I greatly respect those who dream, but I always told myself: I don't know by what means, but I am sure that Yosmelito is going to achieve his dream and... who tells them? After several decades I meet again my dear boy as his son's physical trainerLázaro Yosmel Montes Hernández, a promise for the Big Top.
Yosmel, when you abandoned your athletics, did you dedicate yourself body and soul to your son?
If I told you yes I would tell you the truth. I always saw his appearance, conditions, abilities. I always believed in him. And so it has been. In the 2015 and 2016 seasons he had a great result in the Provincial Championship of the capital, which you know is very strong, 11-12 year old category, hitting 357 bird.
That performance led him to represent Havana in the national tournament, in which the team won bronze behind Ciego de Ávila and Villa Clara.
In 2017 he also had a great result in the provincial competition with 360 birds. He was a member of the Cubanitos team that participated in a competition in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. His promotion continued and a year later in the Nacional 13-14 that was held in Matanzas he broke all expectations. He was already more than a prospect.
Was it in 2018 that you decided your son's future?
Indeed. That same year we came to the Dominican Republic. We arrived on May 16, 2018 and the boy was 13, the first player to arrive at Quisqueya so young.
In Santiago de los Caballeros he began training the day after arriving with a teacher on the field who they call El Varón, very good by the way, one of the best in that city. The representative put him in a gym with a Haitian teacher with whom I never agreed, since he was empirical and the training was more for bodybuilding than for baseball.
It was very hard because, although we left legally, we didn't say anything to anyone; Remember that at that time if the government found out they wouldn't let us leave.
I had made friends in the Dominican Republic; In addition, there are several training camps for Major League teams here. Dominicans are excellent baseball players. Where better could I develop my son?
I always knew he was going to be a great ballplayer. At six years old, I told him that his intense preparation would not be for capital teams, not even CUBA. His training was to play in the Major Leagues. I instilled that in him.
I know it is painful to think like this because the place where you were born is the greatest, but Julita, what future is there in Cuba? Before, wearing the CUBA shirt made you proud, it was the best; Now, I don't want to say what it is.
It's better not to talk about it, although I think that with the hiring and greater openness that must come at some point, not in baseball, but in all sports, perhaps CUBA will once again be a greater aspiration, anyway! We continue with you and Lachy. Have you always been your son's physical trainer?
Look, I owe the role of physical trainer to Cuba, since I studied until the 4th year of the Physical Culture degree in Fajardo, I also spent 20 years in active sports and I have the wisdom acquired from the technicians who have been present in my entire active sports career.
I know of several cases in which athletes have pretended to be their parents' students and for one reason or another it has not been possible. For this reason we have lost more than one talented athlete. Were they freely allowed it to you, taking into account your goals for the boy to be a professional?
I actually started preparing him after a discussion I had with his representative who didn't want me to train him and who's to tell you? I insisted and it was from there that his physical constitution changed because he tended to be chubby.
At this point, one step away from being called up to the major leagues, which coaches do you remember?
Regarding his coaches, he started in Habana del Este with Walter Chávez; Later he was guided by Lency Delgado, Leonardo Rosales (Motembo), Emilio Lugo and Abdel Quintana.
In Guanabacoa he was under the aegis of Amauri Saborit, Lixán Fuentes, René Espín and Frank Javier Menéndez. It is up to grateful people like us not to forget anyone and my son is a product of the grain of sand that each of them contributed.
And in the Dominican Republic, how did it go??
Here he started training as I told you with Varón; In a short time Jochy came with whom I had my differences because he did not like to work with the batintín (implement that is used with hitters to gain touch and perfect the swing).
Some time later, the one who really improved Lachy arrived and I trust his conditions: the Dominican Luis Cabral, Kike, through whom we met William Sandoval, a Venezuelan who also signed with the St. Louis Cardinals and between the three of us we formed a trio phenomenal: Luis and William as hitting and fielding coaches, and me as a physical trainer and also giving my humble opinions on those important aspects of the game.
In addition to us we have Aldo Marrero, who prepared Yordan Álvarez and Eddy Julio Martínez.
Between the four of us we managed to transform Lachy from an average ballplayer into a beast... hahaha... a great ballplayer in just three months. At that time, the change was phenomenal; So much so that not even the scouts (talent seekers) themselves trusted that he would be as he is today.
What do you tell me about the mother that I know has never been separated from you?
The mother, my wife of 18 years, has been the fundamental piece of this triumph, without her we would not have been able to achieve it; Thank God she has also been with us these last four years.
Yosmel, how is Lázaro Yosmel doing right now in terms of increasing muscle mass?
Achieving your current somatotype has been a long process that began six years ago; They worked with their natural strength and many exercises that developed their motor and physical abilities.
I studied a lot about baseball, I realized that I could implement the exercises of throwing the hammer towards the ball. When I said it in Cuba, some of their teachers called me crazy and said that it was impossible.
I was simply guided by his physical constitution at that time, that he was chubby and slow, and I started with all the ABC exercises of athletics in terms of physical preparation. I added a lot of reaction exercises.
I worked on my strength on the ground and in the sand; a lot of strengthening of the upper body, in addition to the races that favor the lower limbs. That is: wheelbarrows from the front, from the side and from the back; abdominals and triceps, abdominals and hypertension, assaults to the front, side and back and short jumps. This, among many other exercises.
Did you work on the psychological aspect taking into account the sudden departure, as it was, the separation from what he always knew, the new environment?
Of course. No one can imagine the importance of psychological relaxation exercises. I learned that at the ISCF "Manuel Fajardo" and in the different psychology courses that I received in my active sports career.
This psychological preparation was adapted to the training changes as time went by: general preparation, special preparation and competitive stage.
Thus the years passed and his physical and psychological development increased, which he exhibited in all the competitions in which he has taken part here in the Dominican Republic.
Did you crash when you arrived in Quisqueya with the training method?
Yes of course. I brought everything I explained to you from Cuba and when I arrived here and began my preparation I began to have differences with the academy coaches and even with the representative.
They said that the physical and technical preparation of baseball here was different from ours and I recognize that technically it is different, but the physical preparation is the same in China on Mars or in Cuba; You just have to know how to distribute the loads of each athlete because all human beings are different, so training cannot be the same for everyone.
The disagreement increased when the representative agreed that Yosmel, still a teenager, should lift irons, which ultimately caused him an injury that I predicted: an inflammation of the right elbow, his throwing hand, which made it impossible for him to hit the ball. right.
Notice that the boy came batting with both hands, he hit many home runs with both hands. In exhibitions (trayout, where scouts meet in search of talent), I really liked the way he hit and that injury hurt him a lot. Until that moment his deficiency was speed, because in the beginning he had a lot of fat on the sides of his trunk and that is why his physique did not look good.
I changed him to another gym but nothing, he was still injured. It took a lot of effort to convince his representative to let me train him, until finally the man gave up.
We started on March 1st and I remember that the day before I sat the boy down and told him that he had to work very hard, but with patience, in order to achieve his first objective, which was for some team to secure him in their squad.
At that family gathering was the mother, who was already in charge of his food since her profession is that of a chef. At the end of our talk, Lachy told us: "Dad, whatever you tell me is until death" and from there we began the path to victory, the three of us together, each one in his role.
For those who know about baseball, I am going to offer you some data that could leave you with your mouth open: from August 25 to October 15, 2019, in 88 at-bats, he gave 44 hits, including 24 home runs, only left-handed. Now he hits hits between 450 and 470 feet at 17 years old.
When we started, the boy was 14 years and 4 months old and weighed 231 pounds, measuring 1.86 cm. After the first month of work he dropped to 225 pounds, all excess fat, and had grown 1cm. In the field he was doing 7.8 seconds in the 60 yards and in his 1st month he dropped to 7.4 seconds.
And the arm?
He improved, doing specific work on strengthening the muscles of the forearm and arm. At the end of April, in his second month with me, he was already at 218 lbs and on the field he was running in 7.2 seconds. He started throwing at 10 meters.
At the end of the third month, in May, he already weighed 208 lbs and his physique looked great; His muscle mass was increasing and his lateral fat was decreasing. He reduced the 60-yard stretch to 7 seconds, threw 60 meters and his height rose to 1.87.
It is truly amazing: at the end of June 2019, in the fourth month with his father, Lázaro Yosmel was already 202 pounds, he was 1.88 tall, he ran 6.9 seconds at 60 yards and his shots reached 80 meters without your arm will experience any pain.
I offer these data so that CiberCuba readers, surely baseball lovers, can evaluate what is coming up there with my son. Hahaha. He is now weighing 205 pounds and almost 1.90 tall. Running dropped to 6.8 seconds. And throw 90 meters without pain.
That is, without immodesty, were you clear that you had to prepare it?
See if this is the case, at the end of August 2019 it was already ready for the trayouts. On August 25 he had his first trayout at MOCA, in a city in the Dominican Republic, and in an activity called "CIBAO TEAM" my son “exploded” in beep, which is a batting practice as if it were the home run derby: he hit 12 16-pitch balls over 385 feet and threw from right field without any problem.
From that day on Lachy participated in many trayouts with many organizations and teams interested in him.
I learned that on the Houston trayout, Lázaro finished.
For me it has been the best. The Astros, as you know, are the team of Yulieski Gourriel and Yordan Álvarez. Well, there he hit a 467-foot shot with a bat speed of 102 kilometers per hour. His shots from the right were for 90 miles. In 2 days of hitting he went 5 for 7 with 3 home runs and 7 RBIs.
Despite this, it has not been easy to come to like it.
That's how it is. The scouts left him batting on 3 and 2 and when the fourth ball came they told him to stay at home plate (that's what exhibitions are like) until either he struck out or the umpire struck out.
Luckily, among all the organizations, the one that trusted him the most was the Seattle Mariners, with whom he signed on January 18. Lachy is already in the Mariners' academy.
Right now his body weight, without a gram of fat, is 228 pounds; His height is 1.95, his 60 yard speed is 6.6 seconds and his arm power from right field ranges between 96 and 98 kilometers per hour....and all this at 17 years old!
Conversation with Lázaro Montes
What does it mean to you to be a big league player like your father always dreamed of?
Imagine, it has been their daily struggle. He materializes in me what he could not do as an auctioneer and I see myself in his efforts and dedication to me. He and my mother have given everything for me and now it's time to make it up to them, to show that I can be great... because I've already arrived but now we have to keep going.
How do you see yourself playing with greats from world ball and, above all, facing greats from Cuba?
Phew! Imagine, the best of the best sharing a piece of land with me. I think about the moment when I face other Cubans or share with someone on the same team, Cuban baseball players who like me have been able to play in the best baseball in the world and I am proud.
At 17 years old, I have a world left to continue fighting for a great future, learn, train, continue respecting my parents, coaches and teammates. Only in this way will I be able to reciprocate what my parents have done for me, who have given me from an early age the possibility of DREAMing, in capital letters.
What do you think?
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