Of Course Bartolo Colon Had A Pet Donkey Named Pancho Growing Up And Got Strong Pulping 1,000 Crates Of Coffee Beans A Day
(Look at that hair and that face! I will say he is Medium Sexy in this picture)
So The New York Times did a piece on Big Sexy and it was a wonderful summary of Colon’s career achievements with a smattering of stories/local legends. I took my favorite blurbs from the article and added them below. Definitely check out the whole story if you are a Bartolo fan (AKA you are a human that breathes oxygen).
But this is the night’s starting pitcher, Bartolo Colon. Forty-two years old, it is believed. Two hundred eighty-five pounds, it is believed — a full 100 pounds heavier than when he made his major league debut in 1997.
When the writer says “it is believed”, he should really say “it is the lie that’s listed in the Mets media guide”. Because there is noooo way Tolo is 285 pounds. He is 3 bills, absolute minimum. And if Bartolo is lying about his weight, he is probably lying about his age too. Latin ballplayers and women are the two hardest creatures on the planet to get an honest answer regarding their age and weight. And adding (at least) 100 pounds since your rookie season? That’s the average weight of a 13-year old kid. And that’s what Fat Bart is WILLING TO ADMIT he weighs as he eats innings and craps quality starts. Just eye-popping numbers.
He comes from a hillside village on the outskirts of Altamira called El Copey, which has one main road and dozens of squat houses under zinc roofs and coconut trees. Local lore attributes his strong legs to climbing trees, and his strong wrists to the childhood chores of picking coffee beans and turning the crank of a machine that removes the pulp from the beans. “From childhood, he was very strong,” his father, Miguel Valerio Colon, recalled. “He was capable of pulping up to 1,000 crates of coffee beans in a day.”
Sometimes, while transporting bags of beans for his father’s produce business, young Bartolo would park his pet donkey, Pancho, beside a sloping lot that served as a baseball field and play a few innings with other children, using balls made of cloth. “The only way you would be able to play was to escape from my dad,” Colon said, “because the main thing was working.” If the pulping machine built up his arms, then throwing rocks to knock fruit from trees developed his accuracy. “Throwing at coconuts and mangoes,” Colon said. “But the coconut was the most difficult.”
I mean honestly, where do I even start here? If the thought of Big Sexy climbing trees doesn’t make you laugh, you don’t have a pulse. I imagine it takes Bartolo two attempts just to get off the toilet now. But Young Bartolo was a spider monkey collecting coffee beans off of trees. And then pulping 1,000 CRATES of coffee beans in a day?!?! Are you kidding me? You could buy 10 yolks of oxen while playing The Oregon Trail for the amount of strength one Bartolo could give you. People in the Dominican Republic probably saw cartoons like Popeye and Superman and thought “Those guys are straight up pussies compared to young Bart Colon from down the block.”
And if that wasn’t enough, Young Sexy was a mix of Aaron Rodgers, Pedro Martinez, and Chris Kyle, just sniping coconuts and mangoes with rocks. Bartolo is a living, breathing version of Paul Bunyan in his hometown, with Pancho the donkey as his Babe The Blue Ox. In my mind, Pancho also talked like Hannah Davis’ horse (or I guess Donkey from Shrek makes more sense) and Pancho definitely helped Bartolo save the village countless times.
“Bartolo, what do you attribute your success in baseball to?”
“Oh nothing much. Just pulping coffee, throwing rocks, my pet donkey Pancho, and enough PEDs to shoot Barry Bonds into space.”
Paul Bunyan may not even be a big enough comparison for Young Bartolo.
Consider the Mets rookie Noah Syndergaard, 22 years old and able to throw at 99 miles an hour. In the Colon paradigm, Darling said, Syndergaard “would have to have the ability, in 2035, to throw the ball 92 miles an hour. In a big league game.”
I love Syndergaard, but he will be long retired by 2035 (probably sooner if Ray Ramirez and the Mets training staff gets ahold of him anytime soon). There is a better chance of someone actually inventing those goddamn Back To The Future hoverboards by October 21, 2015 than Syndergaard throwing 92 MPH cheddar in 2035.
Teammates over the years have described him as gregarious, supportive and not above the occasional athletic parlor trick, such as standing at home plate and throwing a baseball over the outfield wall.
So Bartolo is basically the baseball version of Uncle Rico, huh? He can probably throw a baseball from home plate at Citi Field over the Freedom Tower but doesn’t because he would probably hurt someone once the baseball landed.
And then all of a sudden, as I was reading the column, everything went quiet. Kind of like Sil in The Sopranos when the guy next to him at the restaurant gets whacked. Because out of nowhere, we get a glimpse of Big Papa Sexy!
This man helped create Bartolo Colon. There should be a statue in the Domincan Republic for Big Papa Sexy and one in every city that his son ever played for. Because without him, there is no:
He has carved a baseball stadium out of the hillside, erected a Roman Catholic chapel and built a training complex for young baseball prospects that includes a small museum. Here are a pair of Colon’s major league cleats. Here, a wall illustration telling the story of his beloved donkey, Pancho. And here, an old, crank-style pulping machine, with a sign offering a dare:
TRY YOUR STRENGTH AGAINST BARTOLO’S
25 TURNS – BARTOLITO
50 TURNS – BARTOLO
100 TURNS – SENOR BARTOLO
When they say that Tolo “carved a baseball stadium out of the hillside”, do you think they mean he literally cut into the hills with his bare hands? Because the way this article reads, it honestly wouldn’t shock me.
The wall illustration telling the story of Pancho is something I would honestly pay a flight to the DR for. Is it in like hieroglyphics or something? Does it tell how Pancho saved the village and was the most loyal donkey in the history of the planet? I need to see this wall illustration more than I need to see a Mets World Series championship.
And look at the disrespect they commit in Bartolo’s memory. 100 turns of the crank and you are Senor Bartolo? Fuck that shit. How about you pulp 1,000 POUNDS OF COFFEE A DAY FOR YEARS and then you get the title Senor Bartolo.
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Bartolo Colon. Living legend.