De La Rosa overcomes poverty to make Majors

Rubby De La Rosa wasn’t gifted an easy or comfortable life. The day after De La Rosa was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, his mother sent him to live with his grandmother. While she looked after him as best she could, it was a poverty-stricken childhood for the future D-backs pitcher.

“A lot of days, I would have only one or two meals, and sometimes I wouldn’t have any,” De La Rosa said. “I only had one pair of shoes to go to school, to play baseball, to do everything pretty much.”

De La Rosa started working at a young age in an effort to support his grandmother and try to put food on the table consistently. It led to a tough balancing act as he tried to fit in his jobs, school and of course, baseball.

“I didn’t know how to find the time to do all those things in the same day,” De La Rosa said. “It was hard to keep on [baseball], because sometimes I didn’t have food to eat, sometimes I didn’t make it to school because I was late from work. Sometimes I didn’t go to a field because I had to work my job.”

But baseball was, and remains, De La Rosa’s passion. It started as just a fun activity for him to pass …

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