An hour has passed since the final out, and the home clubhouse at Yankee Stadium is nearly empty other than the gaggle of reporters gathered around Yankees slugger Aaron Judge in the center of the room. While the modest team captain bashfully answers questions about his three-home run, eight-RBI tour-de-force, the rest of the players have already showered and left, eager to get on with their Saturday evening after a 20-9 romp of the Brewers.
One Yankee hangs back, though. Even though he has 15 family members and friends visiting from Miami, J.C. Escarra is in no rush to change out of his pinstriped No. 25 uniform and into street clothes. There are plans to walk around lower Manhattan -- where Escarra and his pregnant wife, Jocelyn, are staying -- and have dinner in Little Italy, but that all can wait. His phone is buzzing like a hornet’s nest, text messages and calls pouring in from well-wishers and loved ones wondering when the celebration will begin. I’m still in the locker room, he tells them in Spanish.
When the moment you’ve been dreaming of your entire life finally arrives, you don’t want to rush the ending.
There was no guarantee that Escarra’s parents would get to see him make his Major League debut during the Yankees’ season-opening series against Milwaukee. Make no mistake: Had the backup catcher’s only visible work been receiving a ceremonial first pitch from Yankees great Andy Pettitte, the trip still would have been worth it just to see him be introduced on Opening Day. But the baseball gods had bigger things in store, and now Escarra stands in front of his locker at Yankee Stadium, home of the team he and his family have long adored, flashing a smile that outshines the diamond studs in his ears.
“That’s it, it’s official,” he says after the game in which he entered as a pinch-hitter for Austin Wells in the seventh inning and then caught Carlos Carrasco in the eighth and ninth. “Big leaguer for life.
“No one can take that away from me.”
Indeed, his Baseball Reference page will forever show that on March 29, 2025, Escarra became the 23,382nd player in history to reach the Majors. He is determined to stick around for a long time to prove that the Yankees’ belief in him is well-founded and help the team capture its 28th world championship.
Whatever the future holds, Escarra has already had an impact on the organization, inspiring coaches and players alike ever since he signed a Minor League contract in January 2024.
“We’re all excited, we’re all pulling for that guy, we all know his story,” Judge will say after Escarra collects his first big league hit -- a double -- on April 3. “But besides that, just the type of person he is, to battle through that type of adversity, he’s come in here every single day with a smile on his face, trying to make guys better, trying to push guys. It’s been fun to watch and fun to be around. He just brings a different energy into this clubhouse, and it’s contagious.”
***
Four days after making his Major League debut, Escarra bounds into the office of Yankees vice president of communications and media relations Jason Zillo, removes his sunglasses and, before sitting on a couch, marvels at the framed faces on the blown-up magazine covers that adorn the walls.
“Look at these pictures all around -- Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera; over here we’ve got Andy [Pettitte], [Jorge] Posada, [Mark] Teixeira,” he says. “I don’t want to wake up from this dream!”
The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of press conferences; viral videos; an appearance with his mom, Marinelys, on the Today show; and interviews such as this one, for which the soon-to-be father -- who will turn 30 on April 24 -- has arrived at the ballpark nearly seven hours before first pitch.
“I’m here, like, 30 minutes earlier [than usual], just for this interview,” Escarra says, adding, “I am usually one of the first guys in and one of the last guys to leave.”
Fans have been enamored with Escarra ever since Spring Training, when the media picked up on his inspiring story, a tale that begins in the predominantly Cuban-American enclave of Hialeah, Florida, just outside Miami. The son of a cable guy and a nurse, Escarra absorbed lessons about perseverance from his hardworking parents, who emigrated from Cuba “with nothing, just the clothes on their backs,” he says. “Obviously, in Cuba, they’re not as privileged as we are here -- communist country, no freedom. So, for the ability to do what I do every day, it’s special.”
The Escarras sacrificed much for J.C. and his brother, Michael, whose middle name -- Derek -- is a nod to the Yankees’ Hall of Fame shortstop. Whether it was private hitting lessons, travel ball fees or socking away money for college, “I was never missing anything that I needed,” Escarra says.
By the time he was a senior at Hialeah’s Mater Academy Charter School, Escarra was attracting the interest of Major League teams. The Mets saw the strong-armed, left-handed-hitting third baseman as a future catcher and drafted him in the 32nd round in 2013. There was only one problem: Escarra had never caught a game in his life. Instead of going pro, he enrolled at Miami’s Florida International University, where he learned some of the basics of the position from head coach and catching guru Henry “Turtle” Thomas.
“I had never put on a pair of shin guards, caught a pitcher, nothing,” Escarra says. “I was raw, so I was never given the big games -- you know, Friday night, Saturday night. I would catch here and there, maybe a midweek game, but I didn’t catch too much. And then I got drafted by the Orioles.”
Over the next five years, after he was taken in the 15th round of the 2017 MLB Draft, Escarra appeared solely at first base, steadily working his way up the Orioles’ Minor League ladder. He earned a June promotion to Triple-A Norfolk in '21, homering in his first game there. After making just two errors in 47 games, he imagined a big league callup was possible in '22. So, when his manager called him into the office that April to let him know he was being released, “it was devastating,” Escarra recalls.
“I thought my career was over.”
He returned home to Hialeah, where he and Jocelyn were still living with his parents. With his 27th birthday approaching, no contract, his wedding coming up that October and a desire to buy a place of his own, Escarra contemplated giving up on his dream. But his family wouldn’t let him. Give it one more year, they said. So, he called up his agent and asked him to find a team -- any team -- that would give him one last shot. But with one stipulation:
“From now on,” Escarra told him, “I’m a catcher.”
***
It’s March 22, five days before the Yankees will begin their 2025 campaign, and Escarra is once again getting called into his manager’s office. This time, though, he is anticipating good news.
The battle for the backup catcher position in Spring Training had been expected to be fierce, but Escarra has clearly distanced himself from the other challengers. His defense has been superb. His pitchers sing his praises. After ending 2024 on a tear at Triple-A and winning a Dominican Winter League batting title, he has continued to rake at the plate.
But when he enters Aaron Boone’s office at George M. Steinbrenner Field, his heart sinks. Where is the rest of the coaching staff waiting to congratulate him on making the big club?
“This is difficult to have to do because I know you’ve put yourself in a really good position, and you’ve done everything we could have expected …” Boone begins.
Escarra breaks into a sweat. He can hardly believe the words that are coming out of his skipper’s mouth. You can’t be serious right now …
“But as you know, we have a lot of catching depth. So, that’s what makes this hard …”
The catcher could cry. But before Boone lets the charade go on any further, he grins and reveals the truth. “Nah, you’re going to the big leagues.” The two baseball lifers share an embrace that neither will ever forget, and moments later, when Escarra connects with his mom, there is no holding back the tears of joy on either end of the video call.
“We’re going to New York,” he says, and Marinelys shrieks in elation. “The dream came true. We did it.”
J.C.’s resurrection began in the independent American Association. While batting .291 in 70 games for the 2022 Kansas City Monarchs, he essentially taught himself how to be a modern catcher, devouring videos and studying big league games to see how the position had changed since he last put on the gear at FIU more than five years earlier. In 2023, he played for five teams in four leagues, including the independent Atlantic League, where he caught the eye of Yankees professional scout Raul González.
All the while, Escarra leaned into his humble roots. While Jocelyn worked three jobs, he picked up side gigs -- substitute teaching, driving an Uber, laying flooring -- so they could make the monthly mortgage payments on their new home. He remembered the advice of fellow Hialeah native Peter O’Brien, a second-round Draft pick of the Yankees in 2012 who played four seasons in the bigs with Arizona and Miami. “He told me, ‘Wherever you’re at -- it doesn’t matter if you’re in Rookie ball, Triple-A, Indy ball, Mexico -- for that moment, that’s your big leagues,’” Escarra says.
“I love baseball. I’ve been doing it since I was 4 years old. I love showing up every day. I love being around the guys. I love the process of it all. People say, ‘Man, you’ve been through the slums, you’ve been to Indy ball, Mexico,’ but those were some of the most fun moments I ever had playing baseball. I met some of the greatest people. So, I enjoyed every experience.”
He also drew inspiration from one of his best friends in the game. While Escarra was toiling under the Kansas City sun in the summer of 2022, taking his lumps as a fledgling backstop, former Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes -- who was born in Cuba and raised in Hialeah, competing with and against Escarra throughout their childhood -- was writing his own Cinderella story, overcoming years of adversity and legions of doubters to become an American League All-Star.
“[Cortes] was a late-round Draft pick, signed for like $100,000, and was fighting release every single year,” Escarra says. “He has talent, but being a 5-foot-8 left-handed pitcher, guys like him really have got to be special to stick around in the Major Leagues for as long as he has. So, yeah, my story is kind of like his -- an underdog story. He had to really fight and claw his way up here.”
Escarra’s reintroduction to affiliated ball came in 2024 as a member of the Double-A Somerset Patriots. Working under the tutelage of Yankees run-prevention coordinator/catching coordinator Aaron Gershenfeld and Patriots defensive coach Aaron Bossi -- and alongside highly touted catching prospects Agustín Ramírez and Ben Rice -- Escarra improved exponentially.
“He was very raw, but he was so open to everything we had to offer him,” Bossi says. “We had to be very, very selective on how we instructed him because … he did everything we asked and went above and beyond, almost to a fault, to where he’d be like, ‘But you told me to do that!’
“He learned very quickly. He’s such a good athlete; his transition to being in the squat was pretty seamless. Throughout the year, we were able to clean up a few little things, and by the end of the season, he ended up scoring at the top of the leaderboards in Triple-A, which was extremely impressive and something we were all very proud of.”
Escarra’s effervescent personality and positive attitude also made him stand out.
“We have such a good culture with our catchers, and he fit right into what we had going on already,” says Rice, who blossomed in his own right in 2024 and is now a regular in the big league lineup, usually at designated hitter. “Tremendous worker, really good teammate, lot of fun to be around, plays the game with a lot of enthusiasm -- just a pleasure to be around every day.”
***
Those who get to be around Escarra every day this season include some of the biggest stars in the sport. From his locker stall in the Yankees’ clubhouse, Escarra can look in any direction and see former first-round picks who signed for huge bonuses, All-Stars with nine-figure contracts, future Hall of Famers.
But the uber-confident former Uber driver knows that he belongs. Escarra earned his roster spot, and everyone is looking forward to seeing what he can do in 2025.
“I’m big on, like, 'I want you to give energy to the room,'” Boone says. “And he brings an energy to the field with him every day. You can tell his passion and love for the game, which I really appreciate. Whatever walk of life it is, I appreciate when you love what you’re doing. I feel like that permeates the room a little bit. He has that.
“Also, for not having any Major League experience yet, he’s got a lot of experience. He’s got some presence to him. He’s got some confidence to what he’s doing. And he can really swing the bat, too. So, I’m excited for him to get in there. I think he’ll handle it well.”
While Escarra expects to contribute whenever he gets into a game, he has become a motivating figure even when he’s on the bench. As his backstory became known, his colleagues have also absorbed it and share the fans’ inspiration.
“When you see stories like that, I think it reminds everyone how lucky you are to be in the situation that you are,” says Wells, the team’s starting catcher. “He’s got his name in a place that not many people do. I think him being able to say he’s a big leaguer is a huge deal.”
Bossi, now the first-year manager of the Single-A Tampa Tarpons, says that Escarra “definitely changed my perspective on coaching because, no matter where a guy is in their career, you always want to pour into them and give them your best because you don’t ever know when it’s going to happen for these guys. I always want to strive to fill these guys with confidence that they can ultimately reach their goals, and J.C. is my prime example for that.”
“You pull for those types of guys,” says Yankees catching coach Tanner Swanson. “He’s certainly an easy guy to cheer for, both externally, people outside of our building, but within our locker room as well. I think guys want to see people like that have success, people who have really paid the price and put in the time and maybe have had their backs against the wall and had to take a difficult route to get to this point. I think everybody appreciates that type of journey.”
For Escarra, the journey is exactly how it was meant to be. He believes that everything is preordained, that it is all meant to happen for a reason. If he had taken a more traditional route to the big leagues and arrived much sooner, no one would have been moved by his story the way they have been in 2025.
“There’s nothing special about me, really,” Escarra says. “The door just opened for me to keep going, to keep working, and it happened for me. But if it can happen for me, it can happen for someone else. I want my story to be an inspiration for other guys to keep going, no matter if it’s in baseball or it’s in anything, really. I just want to inspire.
“This is a dream come true for me and my family. It’s stuff that you dream about as a kid, and I get to live it out right now. I’m just grateful to be here.”
Nathan Maciborski is the executive editor of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the May 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.