Sometimes, on PlayerWives.com we stumble across family stories that can’t go untold. While searching for Javier Baez’s wife, or Javier Baez’s girlfriend, we learned about Javier Baez’s sister Noely Baez. Noely was born with a birth defect that occurs a little less than once every 1000 births called spina bifida, which means “split spine.” It’s a very dangerous defect that happens when the backbone does not close all the way in a baby. Javier told MLB.com that doctors were saying she wasn’t going to live very long after she was born, but Javier and his family are very thankful to have spent as long as they did with her. She died in April of this year. The family are all from Puerto Rico, and they used to travel once a week to the States to get treatment. Then they decided just to move to the States so they could get better treatment for Noely.
They moved to Jacksonville and Javier Baez’s sister was able to get treatment easier. Javier talkes about how independent Baely was, and that she wouldn’t let someone touch her wheelchair. She used to tell them not to push her and that she will do it herself. Javier says he doesn’t like people to feel sorry for his family because they lived a normal life. Their father died when Javier was ten years old, and he was a big influence on him and his love for baseball. The Chicago Cubs organization announced that Javier would take some time off after the death of his sister, right after it happened. Javier himself got a tattoo to commemorate his sister’s life. It said something to the effect of “Your hands never got hurt, your feet never had a bad step…Your body is gone but you will always be among us.”
Now that Javier is back in the lineup after being called up on September 1st, he hit his first home run of the season three days later in a win over the Diamondbacks. I’m sure everyone in Chicago and in the Cubs organization is rooting for him to get into gear and raise his batting average up a bit. He was seen hanging out with Manny Ramirez in the locker room in a picture he posted on Instagram. Manny’s helping Javier along as a batting consultant.