Every Mother’s Day means more for Marlins’ Miguel Rojas, whose mom beat cancer — twice

CHICAGO — Wilson Ramos wondered what song he’d hear when the Marlins’ Miguel Rojas walked up to bat.

It’s usually Bad Bunny, Nacho, or another trending reggaeton artist.

But a melodious ballad called “I Don’t Know How to Live Without You”? That’s hardly a typical choice.

“What’s up with that song, man?” Ramos (then with the Phillies) asked Rojas as he stepped into the batter’s box. “Who sings that?”

“My mom,” he answered.

Rojas wanted to surprise his mother, Norma Naidenoff, on this early September evening last fall before she went back home to Venezuela.

She had surprised him back in 2014 when she sang that same song for her son when he and his longtime girlfriend, Mariana, got married in Caracas.

Naidenoff is a pediatrician, a nutritionist and a public health specialist in their hometown of Los Teques.

But singing is what she says brings her the most joy.

Last year, Rojas helped his mom fulfill her dream of becoming a recording artist in Venezuela, helping her release a nine-song debut album of her singing famous boleros and classic Spanish ballads.

“She’s a doctor, but singing has been her true passion for as long as I can remember,” Rojas said. “When I was little and wanted to become a big-leaguer, I wanted to buy her a clinic of her own one day. But as I got older, I realized what was important to her.”

Sitting a few rows behind home plate that day, Naidenoff struggled to hold back tears.

Eight years ago, their lives were significantly different. Naidenoff found herself in a battle for her life after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

After spending the better part of a year struggling through various treatments, she underwent an operation to remove a tumor in her breast and then chemo and radiation therapies.

She then battled the disease a second time, undergoing a mastectomy to remove one of her breasts.

But through it all, she kept singing.

“I’ve always sang,” Naidenoff said. “I’ve always found it’s had a very healing effect for me. It helped me make it through the toughest times.”

Telling her son

In 2011, Rojas was 22 years old and still cutting his teeth in the minors with the Cincinnati Reds’ Double-A Carolina Mudcats when he found out what his mother was about to go through.

After the season, he hadn’t seen her for months. When Rojas got home, he noticed his mother’s hair was shorter. Rojas didn’t think much of it.

But after eating the dinner she prepared for him — something Rojas said she loves doing for him to this day whenever he visits home — Rojas was about to go out with Mariana (his girlfriend at the time) to catch up with some friends.

Rojas’ mom stopped him just before he walked out the door.

“I just told him, ‘I need to tell you something, but just trust that everything is fine, and everything will be OK,’” Naidenoff said.
Naidenoff had discovered a lump in her breast a few months earlier that required surgery.

She underwent six rounds of chemo. And 37 sessions of radiation.

Rojas couldn’t believe it when his mom showed him her “shorter hair” was actually a wig.

“I just started crying,” Rojas said. “I thought I probably had maybe one more year with her and that’s it. I really felt down because I felt like I hadn’t done anything to help her. I felt like I should have been there.”

Naidenoff refused to alarm her son or anyone she knew at the time, preferring to just tell everyone she was going through “a difficult situation.”

“I didn’t want to tell him because he was working so hard to make it, and I really didn’t want anything to distract him or affect what he had to do,” Naidenoff said. “I remember I held both his hands in mine and told him from here on we stay positive.

“I put on some meditative music and we took a few deep breaths together, and there was no more crying after that.”

That day, Rojas asked his mom what he could do to help.

She jokingly answered: “You can get more hits.”

That night, though, he made a different promise to his mom.

“He told me, ‘Mom, I can’t promise that, but I can promise you, I’ll be a better son,’” Naidenoff said with tears forming in her eyes.

Rojas and his mother, Norma Naidenoff. (Courtesy of Miguel Rojas)

Only baseball mattered

Naidenoff began practicing medicine when Rojas was very young.

After Naidenoff and Rojas’ father, Miguel Sr., separated when he was six years old, Rojas’ grandparents (Naidenoff’s parents), Norma and Rafael, often took care of him while she worked and took him to local parks so he could play baseball, a sport his mother said he liked “practically since he came out of the womb.”

Rojas credits his grandmother, who passed away two years ago, for teaching him discipline from a young age.

Naidenoff, who takes care of her father these days in Venezuela, said Rojas never wanted to do anything else but play baseball as a kid.

“When the other kids would finish playing and want to go get ice cream or go home to play video games, he’d stay at the park and want to play more,” Naidenoff said. “He’d always tell me, ‘I could have done this better. I could have done that better.’ He always took the game seriously like it was his job.”

Three years after his mother’s initial diagnosis, Rojas made his major-league debut with the Dodgers.

Four years after that, he’d become the starting shortstop for the Marlins.

Rojas, 30, settled with the Marlins on a $3.16 million salary this season, following a 2018 campaign during which he posted a career-high 11 home runs and 53 RBIs.

Rojas earned the respect of his teammates and many others around baseball long before he became a millionaire, though.

Multiple players polled anonymously in a survey earlier this year by The Athletic said Rojas was the funniest teammate they’ve ever had.

Even now with the rebuilding Marlins mired in the worst start in franchise history (10-29 entering Sunday), Rojas remains upbeat and professional even after the most frustrating of defeats.

Stay strong Cam, Praying for ur mom and the whole family. My mom overcome 2 of them I know ur mom will too brother. I would love to get one of those shirts while I’m in New York too. #NaeNaeStrong https://t.co/8n1UxRKGl4

— Miguel Rojas (@MRojasOfficial) May 10, 2019

“I’ve never played with a player as intelligent as he is,” said Marlins second baseman Starlin Castro. “He knows the game and knows the ins and outs of every play. That’s huge for a team like this that’s rebuilding now. He can talk defense, baserunning, hitting, everything. Very few guys take the road he has and become leaders of a clubhouse.”

Staying positive

Naidenoff had to limit how many of her own patients she could see while undergoing her cancer treatments.

But she didn’t stop singing.

Naidenoff had been singing for years in competitions at festivals organized by medical professionals at the regional level in her home province of Miranda.

Three years before her cancer was detected, she won first place at one of them for singing another Spanish bolero called “Nostalgia Andina.”

She then was invited to a national competition where she sang and won again.

“I used to just sing on my own time, but people would ask me, ‘Why don’t you record an album?’”

In early 2011, Naidenoff coordinated with a couple of local musicians, Carlos Carreño and Jose Piñeda, and they recorded two songs.

But when she began treatments, she had to put the plans for a full album on hold.

It didn’t stop her from singing in competitions though.

“People would see me, and they’d say, ‘Oh, I love your new haircut,’” Naidenoff said with a laugh. “The crazy part is I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would during the treatment. I didn’t even lose weight. In fact, I ate too much.”

By the following year, Naidenoff was in remission and resumed seeing patients full-time again.

She remained that way until 2016, when she went to see her friend and oncologist, Dr. Maricela Gallardo, for one of her periodic follow-ups.

Gallardo detected a new lump.

The cancer had returned.

After undergoing the mastectomy, Naidenoff also underwent reconstructive plastic surgery.

The mastectomy removed all traces of the cancer, and she did not undergo any further chemo or radiation.

Naidenoff is in remission again, and no further signs of the cancer have been detected since.

Rojas, his mother Norma and his sister Noelia after a game late last season at Marlins Park. (Courtesy of Miguel Rojas)

Making the album

Naidenoff, who recently completed her 35th year as a practicing physician, returned to her dream project after being declared cancer-free.

With the help of her daughter, Noelia, who is attending college and studying sound engineering, Naidenoff resumed her efforts to produce an album last year.

Rojas helped with the financial costs, paying the $2,000 to the record label.

She titled the album, “Renacer” or “Reborn” in English.

She purposely made the track she sang at Rojas’ wedding No. 7 on the album.

The album was released seven years after her initial cancer diagnosis.

“I poured my heart into this album,” Naidenoff said. “I never wanted anyone to lose faith I’d make it because I never did. I was reborn. And I have faith now that Venezuela will soon be too.”

Turmoil at home

Naidenoff traveled to Miami last week to see Rojas play with the Marlins, and she remained with him as the team has made trips to Chicago and New York, two cities she had never visited before.

It took Naidenoff 16 hours to go from Los Teques to Miami last week after her flight was delayed and included a long layover in the Dominican Republic. This after a perilous drive from their hometown in Los Teques past several protests on the streets on the way to the airport near Caracas.

Rojas’ mother has been dealing with the crisis affecting Venezuela for some time now.

The ongoing conflict between the Nicolas Maduro regime and the opposition currently led by Juan Guaido has seen its share of violent and often deadly encounters, including an attempted military uprising that was put down on April 30.

Guaidó challenged the legitimacy of Maduro’s 2018 re-election and has since been recognized as the true president of the country by most Western and Latin American countries.

Rojas played for three weeks in the Venezuelan Winter League in December for the Tiburones de La Guaira. Although he stayed mostly with the team, he noticed the changes in his home country.

“My father writes to me every day and he tells me how things aren’t easy on the streets right now. People have a hard time just obtaining basic goods to survive,” Rojas said. “Soap, toothpaste, detergent, toilet paper, there are people that can’t get any of that right now. I’m on the outside (being here), but there are people there living this.

“Quality of life has gone backwards for people. There are people dying on the streets. It’s the complete extreme end of the spectrum. It’s not like people are in poverty to the point where you can’t go eat somewhere fancy or something like that. They don’t have the means to eat at all.”

These days, Naidenoff is doing what she can to help struggling people back home.

Naidenoff has begun giving her patients free appointments in recent months with hospitals low on supplies and as many mothers and expectant mothers need care for their babies.

More than once, Naidenoff has rounded up food she’s cooked and gone out on the streets to give it to those in need.

“It’s really bad right now,” Naidenoff said. “You go to the supermarket, and there are no bags to put your groceries in. You see people starving. People are carrying what they can with their hands. People are carrying loaves of bread for miles home. You have to constantly make sure you have potable water. The government is cutting power at times during the day. It’s horrible. Businesses are closed. It’s a ghost town at nights.”

Miguel Rojas turns a double play for the Marlins against the Cubs on Monday, May 6, in Chicago. (Quinn Harris / USA Today)

Reunited on the road

While in Chicago, Miguel and Mariana made sure Naidenoff and Noelia had a chance to take in the tourist sights like the Willis Tower and the Navy Pier. They told them to check out Central Park in New York.

During the evenings last week, the three of them and Rojas’ two-year-old son, Aaron, braved the 35-degree temperatures in the stands at Wrigley Field to watch him play.

Naidenoff, bundled with a blanket that only left her eyes visible, stood outside the Marlins clubhouse and waited for her son to emerge to give him a hug.

Although he had to play a game Sunday, Rojas loved knowing he’d see his mom on Mother’s Day.

It’s something he doesn’t take for granted. Not after that opportunity was so close to being taken away.

“This is my way of paying back everything she did for me,” Rojas said. “It lets me not worry about anything else, knowing she’s here and that my family is all together.”

— Norma Naidenoff’s debut album “Renacer” is available on Spotify, Amazon and Pandora.

(Top photo of Rojas getting a hug from his mother: Courtesy of Miguel Rojas)