NEW YORK — With his fractured left ankle in a boot, propped up on a padded cushion atop a scooter, Oswaldo Cabrera wheeled his way into the Yankees clubhouse on Thursday afternoon.
Cabrera took several minutes to say hello and shake hands with every single reporter standing near his locker, taking questions from the group in person about his gruesome and devastating ankle injury for the first time.
In classic Cabrera form, the spunky infielder had a smile on his face the entire time, looking on the bright side of his situation despite the lengthy road to recovery that lies ahead.
“I always have a plate in my locker that says everything happens for a reason,” Cabrera said. “So everything happened for a reason. I have to take it and I have to learn from it. What can I do to get better when I come back? That’s on my mind all the time. If that happened, I can’t do anything to go back and change something. So what can I do now to get better? What can I do to be ready and be a better player when I come back.”
Cabrera hurt his ankle while scoring from third base on a sacrifice fly in Seattle on May 12. He was carted off the field that night and transported to a local hospital. Cabrera was then moved to the injured list the next day and he underwent surgery a few days later. There was ligament damage in the ankle that made the procedure more involved, likely adding more time to Cabrera’s journey back.
Don’t tell Cabrera the odds, though. Even if it’s unlikely that he’ll be back in a game with the Yankees this year, he’s staying positive and can’t wait to get back to work.
“They told me that it’s a small possibility,” Cabrera said. “I’m an optimistic guy that feels like the good things can be on my way. I’m gonna work to be back soon.”
In the meantime, Cabrera joked that he’s been bored all the time as he begins his recuperation process. He can’t put weight on his foot yet, so he’s relegated to the scooter and walking boot. Plates, screws and even some rope were put into the ankle to stabilize the injury.
“Oh, it’s so bad,” he said about the scooter. “I don’t like it! It is what it is. I have to do it and I hope to be out of this scooter soon.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone isn’t sure if it’s realistic for Cabrera to be back later this year, but he knows that Cabrera is the kind of player who will do his best to make that happen.
“I think there’s a small possibility and what do I know,” Boone said. “I don’t think we’re necessarily expecting it, but you never know how we heal and how the next couple of months [will go]. I know one thing with Oswaldo is that there’s not a better person out there who loves all this as much as him, and I know he’s going to pour everything into the rehab process and healing, and we’ll see where we are as it unfolds.”
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Max Goodman may be reached at [email protected].