“I am four or five years old. My father is a second baseman on a semipro baseball team in the town of Utuado. I call him Pai, short for Papi. He is kind of a small guy compared to the other players, but he is like a giant to me. He wears superhero clothes like in my comic books: tight shirt and pants that show off his muscles. He has special shoes that make marks in the dirt when he walks. His arms and shoulders look like they could yank a palm tree straight out of its roots. His face is hard as the bricks holding up our clapboard house.”

Two-time World Series champion catcher Benjamin José "Bengie" Molina’s heartwarming memoir opens with his earliest memory in a ballpark --- watching his father hit a game-winning home run, round the bases and reach home plate with the biggest grin, then hoisting him up onto his shoulders in a conjoined celebration. Molina recalls tremendous feelings of happiness and connectedness as if the two were “one big baseball man.”

"MOLINA is a tender and uplifting dual biography. While highlighting his amateur and professional baseball career, Molina reflects on his father’s legacy --- his dad’s dreams of being a good father and husband, commitment to community and deep love of baseball."

With award-winning sportswriter Joan Ryan, Molina (nicknamed “B-Mo” and “Big Money”) chronicles his unlikely journey --- from the barrios of Dorado, Puerto Rico, to the dry deserts of Yuma (home of Arizona Western College); from cauliflower fields and citrus groves (sources of supplemental income during his amateur years) to the minor league farms; from Cedar Rapids to Peoria, Midland to Shreveport; from the Caribbean winter leagues to his Major League debut (in September 1998) and championship season with the Anaheim Angels (in 2002), through the years playing for the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants. All the while, he pays tribute to his namesake father, Benjamin Molina Santana.

In revisiting his roots, B-Mo relates, “The story of my father is, in many ways, the story of Puerto Rican baseball. Our best players emerged from rutted fields that once grew sugarcane. They cut bats from tree branches and as children wore paper bags for fielding gloves. They sharpened their eyes by hitting dried seeds.” He adds, “They tuned in to radio broadcasts of Major League games, listening for mentions of Hiram Bithorn and El Divino Loco (The Divine Madman, former MLB pitcher Rubén Gómez Colón was the first Puerto Rican to pitch in a World Series game) and Roberto Clemente.”

For Molina and his siblings, José and Yadier (also accomplished Major League catchers and World Series champions), the local baseball field “always seemed like an extension of our home.” Molina writes, “Pai cared for the baseball fields the way Mai cared for our houses. He brought a rake to clear the rocks and smooth the infield divots. He brought enormous, ten-inch sponges and a wheelbarrow of sand to sop up rainwater.”A factory worker by day, Molina’s father devoted the rest of his time teaching his three boys the fundamentals of the game (“Pai had a system for teaching us baseball. He introduced one skill at a time, making sure we mastered it before moving on to the next. First, he taught us how to catch a ball. For days and weeks, we did nothing but play catch. Two hands. Get in front of the ball. He didn’t yell. He talked.”), coaching Kuilan’s Little League team, Los Pobres (The Poor), laying down the rules (e.g. Be on time; play selflessly; don’t blame anyone else) and emphasizing respect for “coaches, umpires, teammates, teachers, parents, the game and yourself.”

Molina fondly remembers those early years when he and the neighborhood boys wrapped electrical tape around crumpled paper for balls and used broomsticks as bats. He describes his father’s transformation when assuming the roles of mentor, confidante and coach: “He seemed somehow softer in the field. He moved differently, with more lightness and grace. He was uncomfortable with affection, but on the field he’d sling his arm around us or pat our faces when we did something well or he wanted to lift our spirits.”

MOLINA is a tender and uplifting dual biography. While highlighting his amateur and professional baseball career, Molina reflects on his father’s legacy --- his dad’s dreams of being a good father and husband, commitment to community and deep love of baseball.