Navarro speaks Dodgers’ language

Nick Christensen

Friday, April 15, 2005 | 10:30 a.m.

Cashman Field Radio: all games on 1460-AM and 870-AM

Dioner Navarro met his wife on the Internet.

A lifelong baseball fan born in the Bronx, Sherley probably thought she'd hit the jackpot when she started chatting with a Venezuelan who turned out to be the Yankees' top catching prospect.

But to hear Dioner tell it, there's no question who got the better end of the deal.

A lot of the story of Navarro revolves around Sherley, who he's known for almost five years and been married to for two and a half.

She'll rejoin Dioner tonight after a month apart as the Las Vegas 51s' new catcher makes his home debut against the Colorado Springs Sky Sox at Cashman Field.

Sherley helped Dioner get through what he called the toughest test of his baseball career -- learning English.

"I'm excited I can speak both languages. I'm glad my wife was my teacher," Navarro said. "She stayed with me that whole time, telling me how to say stuff. I feel proud for her and proud for myself too."

But Sherley also was the cause of Dioner's toughest test through his baseball career.

"That was the biggest challenge of my life," Dioner said of the night in 2003 when Sherley suffered a brain aneurysm.

"I'm pretty excited right now that God gave her another chance at life," he said. "We are together and I'm excited about her being alive."

It wasn't always so exciting. At the time, Sherley lost 60 percent of her left side strength, Dioner said.

Not by coincidence, Navarro's numbers slid. In 2003 at Double-A Trenton, he hit .341. In 2004 at Trenton, his average slumped to .271. A move to Triple-A Columbus dropped his batting average another 20 points.

"It was probably the first time in his career he had encountered any kind of what he would feel to be adversity, which is a lesson in itself to learn how to cope with it," Trenton manager Stump Merrill said. "More importantly he learned how to get out of it and overcome it."

Dioner said he was singularly thankful that the aneurysm happened just after the 2003 season ended.

"At the beginning of the season I was still having a little bit of a problem, but when she started getting better, I felt much more comfortable on the field because I wasn't thinking much about that," he said. "She's feeling great, and now God is paying me back -- my wife is 12 weeks pregnant, I'm excited about having another baby. I'm thanking God every day He gave us another chance."

Wait, did somebody say something about a batting average slipping? Inconsequential to Navarro given the circumstances, and intriguing to Dodgers general manager Paul DePodesta, who saw Navarro as the solution to the club's quagmire at the receiving end of the battery.

It would be unfair to say that the winter moves the Dodgers made that concluded with the acquisition of Navarro were made solely to get a Triple-A catcher with seven major league at-bats. Creating salary flexibility by unloading Shawn Green's contract was a consideration.

But the Yankees got Randy Johnson, the Diamondbacks got Green, Brad Halsey and Javier Vazquez, and the Dodgers got Navarro and three low-minors pitchers.

The deal festered in some form or another for more than a month. It came as no surprise to Navarro.

"For the last two years, every time the Yankees were named in trade rumors, my name was coming up," he said. "I knew at some point in my career the trade was going to happen, it was going to be sooner or later."

DePodesta, who had already acquired Sacramento catcher Mike Rose through free agency in the offseason, saw tremendous upside in Navarro.

"I think in Navarro's case, he's still a very young catcher, but he's a switch hitter who we feel has above-average skills offensively and defensively," DePodesta said. "He's got a very mature approach to hitting, and his raw talent behind the plate defensively is well above average."

He didn't blow them away in his first spring training in Vero Beach after four Marches in Tampa, hitting .188 but striking out just once. Defensively, he adjusted well, and he said the overall transition was smooth.

"I was a little bit nervous. I didn't know how the organization was -- that was my biggest concern. As soon as I got there, it was cool," he said. "They don't want to rush me. They want me to get a little more experience and be ready. They told me any moment I can be called up."

Las Vegas manager Jerry Royster came away from Vero Beach impressed with Navarro's abilities.

"I saw him all spring training, and I've seen him for the first couple weeks here. He comes highly touted and he's living up to his billing," Royster said. "His defensive skills are a lot better than I thought they were. They're well above average. He's a definite major-league prospect when it comes to that.

"Offensively, he's swung the bat well here so far. I guess he's on track to be what everyone thinks he can be."

Royster said Navarro's intangibles are another key to his young catcher's success.

"You tell him something and he gets it done," he said. "He's on top of pitchers. Mentally, he thinks the game well. I think that's the defensive part most people saw, that he takes control."

Still, Navarro is competing with Rose, a 10-year minor-league veteran who played a key part in Sacramento's back-to-back Pacific Coast League championships. Rose and Navarro are both 3-for-16 this year.

"I told them ahead of time, everybody's going to play," Royster said Thursday. "Dioner's going to do the bulk of the catching. Tonight, Mike's going to catch because I want Dioner to play at home, but they're both going to catch. He has no problems with that."

Navarro shrugged off the impact the competition from Rose has on his game.

"It doesn't put pressure on me, and it doesn't take pressure off me," he said. "I still do my job, I know what it takes to do my job. We've got a good relationship together. He knows the game pretty good. We've just got to keep doing our job and wait for the opportunity."

And wherever he goes, Sherley and 6-year-old stepson Gerson will be standing by -- even if he's not a Yankee anymore.

"She was like, now I'm going to keep rooting for the Yankees," Dioner said. "Wherever I'm going to be, she's going to be with me. We're going to be together supporting each other."