You memorize lots of things during college: names and dates, scouting reports and the bunt sign, and what to order at Pancake Pantry. On his next-to-last day as undergraduate, Alan Espinal and his parents visited the Hillsboro Village breakfast institution. He didn’t need a menu. The order is always the same: medley omelet, buttermilk pancakes and hash browns.
And a large orange juice.
“Best orange juice I’ve ever had, Pancake Pantry,” Espinal mused.
He’s been ordering the same thing for four years, since another breakfast with his parents after they drove from Florida ahead of his first year at Vanderbilt. There have been a lot of omelets since that first breakfast—and a lot of firsts. The first class. The first baseball workout, so intense he worried he was in over his head. The first season and an unforgettable run to the College World Series. This spring brought his first season with the responsibilities of a full-time starting catcher and his first SEC Player of the Week award.
After graduating last week with a degree in medicine, health and society, he’s running out of firsts at Vanderbilt. At some point, there will be only a last. But as baseball’s postseason begins in the SEC Tournament in Hoover, Alabama, no one better embodies the spirit of the second season. The postseason is a chance to start anew and use the wisdom gained to get to where you want to go. It’s a chance to grow, if you take it. That’s all Espinal has ever done, from his first day at Vanderbilt to his last. Whenever and wherever that may come.
“I admire everything about Alan Espinal,” head coach Tim Corbin said. “His gratitude for life and what he has is reflected by his actions on a daily basis. He is a great example of parenting done very well. His parents purposely split apart after the hurricane in Puerto Rico, so that he and his brothers could move to the United States for greater opportunity.
“Alan repays his parents continually with his work habits and investment in the people around him. His growth mentally and physically has been extraordinary. He is such a unique young man with such special human fibers.”
Espinal, far right, with his father, Raphael Espinal, and mother, Sanya Colon, on Senior Day.
A First Time for Everything
If Espinal was reluctant to grow, he never would have put on catching gear in the first place. As a boy in Puerto Rico, it wasn’t his first position. He played shortstop, like his older brother. He loved…