Eventually, he succumbed. He played 110 games, hit a career-low .294 -- the first time he failed to hit .300. But in late August, with the Expos hopelessly in last place, he decided to go on the disabled list. He had surgery in September.
"He didn't even want to have [surgery] when he had it, and leave this team," Robinson said, "because he felt like he was letting the team down if he wasn't here to play, even on one leg."
Jose Vidro, who spent the first eight seasons of his major league career with the Montreal Expos, is a cornerstone of the Washington Nationals.
(Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
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The admiration Robinson, a Hall of Fame player, has for Vidro is apparent when the manager talks of his second baseman's battles with injuries last year. The other day, Robinson desperately wanted to describe how he felt about Vidro taking his glove each day, knee be damned, and playing. He searched for a word, unable to find it.
"It wasn't that you felt sorry for him," Robinson said. "It wasn't that it was a pitiful sight. It's just that you knew he shouldn't be out there, and you knew what he was going through, and you know it was a lot of pain, and you just wished that you could do something to help him so that he wouldn't be in that position."
Tuesday morning, less than five months after undergoing surgery, Vidro took grounders on an auxiliary field behind Space Coast Stadium. With his 9-year-old son, Jose Jr., watching from a dugout bench, he crisply flipped the ball to his new shortstop, Cristian Guzman, and later rocketed line drives around the outfield during batting practice. He will play only two or three innings Wednesday, and will monitor his progress closely.
"I need to be stronger," he said.
But he looked comfortable. Later Tuesday night, Vidro joined his son and his wife of 12 years, Annette, in celebrating the second birthday of their daughter, Anais, in a bland apartment complex along an unremarkable road in nearby Melbourne. Nothing fancy, Vidro said. Just a quiet night with family, his teammates awaiting the next morning. Home.
"The surroundings around me, that's what matters," he said. "It was a matter of time before things changed for the better. I knew it would, and I'm ready for it now."
