El siete de febrero/February 7th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Roberto Osuna! (1995-        )

Osuna (in blue) with his parents and siblings.
From sports.vice.com. Click HERE. 
A professional baseball player from Mexico, Osuna was the youngest pitcher ever to appear in a Major League Baseball game when he played for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015. He continues to play for the team, and was recently signed for a one year, $5.3 million contract. Osuna had been acquired by the team in 2011 for $1.5 million, a deal that changed his family's life. Despite his father's history playing professional baseball (22 seasons in the Mexican League), the family struggled after an arm injury ended his father's career. At that point, Osuna, age 12, left school to help support his family by picking vegetables. He and his father (also Roberto) practiced pitching after work. The entire family slept in one room and struggled to make ends meet. Thus, one of the first things that Osuna did after being signed at the age of 16 was to buy his family a house (read more (in Spanish) HERE). He then played for three years in the minor leagues before moving up to the majors. In 2013, Osuna tore a ligament in his elbow and had to undergo "Tommy John" reconstructive surgery. He said that experience taught him who he could truly count on (his immediate family), as many others who had been by his side when he was healthy quickly abandoned him when he was hurt. Osuna recovered from that surgery and returned to the mound successfully, though in 2017 he revealed that he was dealing with anxiety issues, which caused him to miss several games. Many credit him for openly discussing such a taboo issue (click HERE to read more in this L.A. Times profile). Osuna has one child, born in September of 2017, though not many details are available except that he flew back to Mexico for the child's birth (source: Toronto Sun).
Sergi and Coral.
Photo from La Vanguardia story
announcing their engagement.
Click HERE. 

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

Other February 7th birthdays:

Sergi Roberto (1992-     ): A professional soccer player from Reus (in Catalonia), Spain, Roberto made his first senior international appearance for Catalonia in 2011. He had previously played for Barcelona B. He and Israeli model and engineering and design student Coral Simanovich are engaged (as of September 2017).


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