Baseball, hometown close to Castillo’s heart

A tale of two streets. That’s the story of Welington Castillo.

Born and raised in a town called San Isidro near the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo, the catcher nicknamed “Beef Mode” was molded by his family, friends and a baseball field all within just two poorly paved streets.

“I’m really blessed because these streets are almost all family,” Castillo said about the neighborhood that raised him. “I was born in a baseball family. They played baseball on both sides, my mom’s side and my dad’s side. The field is right there, so I just have to cross a road, and I’m going to be there.”

Castillo is not exaggerating when he says it’s almost entirely his family residing on his block. Next door is one aunt, on the other side is his cousin, and so on. When he comes home in the offseason, they all come together and have a three-month-long family reunion.

“It’s a pleasure to spend time with them and go to the field and know how everything is going,” Castillo said. “Mostly I like just sitting in front of my dad’s house with all of my family coming around here and eating, sitting in the street, talking about baseball. That’s the stuff that made me happy.”

A man of faith, Castillo still attends services led by a neighborhood pastor at the same church he went to as a child. He gets his hair cut at the barber shop across the road he once thought he would run, now owned and operated by his cousin Kelvin. Everywhere you go in this Dominican barrio, you will inevitably find someone in the Castillo family tree.

Castillo’s family led him to baseball: As a child, when he saw one of his uncles with a bat and glove, the young Welington would follow him to the field two blocks away. His parents knew early on what they had on their hands.

“Since he was born, he loved baseball,” said his mother, Argentina Paulino, through a translator. “He used …

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