Royals’ closer retired from baseball at 18 to be an engineer. Life had other plans
If you’ve followed the Royals through this exasperating season, chances are you’ve at least enjoyed and even embraced the ol’ Kamehameha wave — closer Carlos Estévez’s anime-based save celebration.
It’s derived from what’s known as a “powerful energy attack,” which reflects “a flashy move … to punctuate … bigger battles.”
Even if you knew that, most likely you don’t know about how and why Estévez views the gesture as a manifestation of his own journey. Through Wednesday, that has included being tied for the most saves (22) in Major League Baseball and being on track to break the Royals’ single-season record of 47 set by Greg Holland in 2013.
(At least if the 38-43 Royals have, you know, more occasion to take leads into the ninth inning.)
“To perform that attack, you’ve got to get through a lot of training and a lot of overcoming rage and fear inside of you,” Estévez said during an interview with The Star on Wednesday in the Royals’ dugout. “You’ve got to be in the right mindset …
“It’s a combination of hard work and mental toughness to be able to perform it.”
Dealing with rage wouldn’t seem the term most applicable to Estévez, who is as amiable and animated as anyone in the Royals’ clubhouse and radiates a room-energizing presence.
And now in his ninth MLB season with an All-Star appearance (2023) behind him and perhaps another right before him, his career arc might seem seamless.
But assuming “fear inside you” is about the same as doubt, one of the reasons Estévez is so effervescent is because he appreciates every day of a career that was in jeopardy before it ever even launched.
By age 18 — or 18-and-a-half, he’ll have you know more precisely — the Dominican Republic native believed he had aged out of the likelihood of being signed.
I laughed when he said that, but he wasn’t joking: That’s often the prevailing reality there if you’re not discovered by age 16.
Besides, his insecurity was otherwise plenty well-informed:
By his estimate, over a three-year period he had auditioned some 150 times for MLB teams — including 17 with the Milwaukee Brewers over the course of just a few months.
“We’re talking about a 15-, 16-year-old, throwing four times a week,” he said, smiling. “It’s like a reliever in the big leagues.”
By way of an example he kept seeming to encounter, clubs would tell him they’d sign him once he threw over 90 mph. Then he’d see he’d thrown in the low 90s but … nothing.
So just before the summer of 2011, he walked into the family living room to share some news with his mother, Quenia.
He was “retiring” from baseball.
“I was like, ‘I’m done,’” he said. “‘I want to go to school.’”
As she inserted a bookmark in whatever she was reading, he remembered her saying, “‘OK, that’s fine. What do you want to do?’”
Be a civil engineer, he said, since he was good at math.
Presto, she enrolled him in some math classes as he pondered his future education and maybe-possibly-perhaps extending his baseball career as part of that.
Even with that new path looming, though, his father, Ignacio, persuaded him to attend one last tryout in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo that would be scouted by all 30 MLB teams.
That day, he remembered pitching much the same way he had been: In one inning, he struck out two, induced a groundout. His pitches were registering in the low 90s.
When he showered afterward, he thought that he had gone “out in a big way” as he retired with conviction. Never mind that the next morning he was so down he didn’t really want to get out of bed.
As it happened, though, Estévez had flashed enough to get signed by the Rockies — who along with the Royals had been the first team to see him several years before.
When his dad delivered the news, he figured the Rockies might offer a $5,000 signing bonus. Maybe $10K, if he was lucky.
So when they said $30,000, the man the Royals signed in January to a two-year, $22 million deal was ready to sign ASAP.
His mom said not so fast: She insisted on another $10,000 toward a college scholarship in case he never made the big leagues.
The first $30,000 went toward paying down family debt, including on the house. But that $10,000 Plan B remained in a separate account for several years as Estévez made his way through the Rockies system.
All along that way toward more than 100 saves with four major-league teams, he had all he ever wanted: a chance.
One he still savors inning by inning, pitch by pitch and typically even breath to breath to amplify his focus.
Over time, he also came to typically view the world through a positive and resilient lens, a vital trait in the high-wire act of closing games.
So he enjoyed what he figured were several advantages during the five years between “retirement” and his MLB debut in 2016.
For one thing, the son of a now-retired policeman and now-retired accountant had grown up with a certain sense of structure and discipline in the home.
Not that they didn’t laugh a lot, too. Among the great takeaways he had at home was to seek what makes him happy — a notion that reverberates through his personality.
Still, the youngest of three children also was taught to truly listen to others and be curious and respectful.
And to have this abiding outlook:
“It was not like I was entitled to everything; I was taught how things are earned,” he said. “... Those are things I carry to baseball. I noticed (back then) that a lot of the younger guys, Americans and Latinos, often had problems with being on time for meetings and stuff.
“And when I looked back, I mean, that’s the way that I was raised.”
Another vital result of that was how empowered he felt by learning English, which began largely through watching Spanish-subtitled versions of shows such as “Friends,” “Two and a Half Men,” “Saved By the Bell” and, he added with a laugh, “even ‘The Sopranos.’”
That grasp of the language was accelerated by spending his junior year at a West Virginia private school, a chance opportunity that emerged from a meeting at a tournament in Florida.
Add it all up, and Estévez came to feel almost as if he had “cheated” going through the minors because he was so much more comfortable being away from home and speaking English than many of his peers.
“Like how to deal with banks, phone bills, water bills, all those,” he said. “For a lot of guys, it gets really hard in the minor leagues. For me, it was kind of easier.”
Easier but never easy, even for a guy who’s been at it in the big leagues since 2016.
That’s when he took the mound (before hitting 100 mph during two scoreless innings against the Dodgers) to the inadvertently harmonious tune of “Wild Thing” — the old Troggs tune given fresh life in the context of Charlie Sheen’s loose-cannoned character in the “Major League” movie.
While the song wasn’t his idea and apparently was invoked as a default, it turned out to be a particularly apt choice.
Not because Estévez has been absurdly wild, but because Sheen’s birth name is … Carlos Estevez. Sheen invited the reliever to his Malibu home for lunch some months later.
Estévez has enjoyed getting to know the actor a bit but eventually got away from the “Wild Thing” intro because he wanted to find something that more embodied his own persona.
Safe to say he has found it now in the Kamehameha wave from “Dragon Ball Z.”
In more ways than you could see ... and making for one of the few “powerful energy attacks” the Royals have demonstrated halfway through this season.
This story was originally published June 27, 2025 at 6:30 AM.