A Thousand Times Home

San Nicolaas

Xander Bogaerts was raised in San Nicolaas, Aruba, near the beach. He and his twin brother, Jair, were raised mainly by their mother, Sandra Brown — a social worker known as Supermom — after their father left when the boys were toddlers. Their uncle Glenroy Brown was the father figure and the coach. In the backyard, Glenroy pitched small curved almonds from a tree for Bogaerts to hit with a broomstick among the cacti, reasoning that a boy who could track a tiny object would find a baseball easier to hit. He hung a tire from the same tree for swing practice and later trimmed Christmas tree branches into bats.

At sixteen, Bogaerts was in bed with chicken pox and a high fever when Jair and others persuaded Red Sox scout Mike Lord to come see him anyway. On a rocky field under car headlights, he hit multiple home runs — one shattered a nearby house window — and made a diving play at shortstop, throwing home from his backside. Lord summoned the executives. Boston signed him for $410,000 in August 2009, also signing Jair for $180,000 as part of a package deal.

He debuted on August 20, 2013, and won a World Series that fall.

A Thousand Times Home

On August 31, 2026, in his fourth season with the Padres, Bogaerts scored his 1,000th career run. Fourteen seasons built the number: ten in Boston, four in San Diego, 1,797 games, 1919 hits, a .348 on-base percentage, and 398 doubles.

He won a second World Series with the Red Sox in 2018. That October, after twenty-three years apart, he reached out to his father, Jan Maarten, inviting him from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. They reunited for meals and family time, then embraced on the field after the clinch. Bogaerts later said it was one of his best decisions and that he had forgiven the past.

Five Silver Slugger seasons and four All-Star selections came in Boston. He has been with San Diego since 2023 and has played 131 games this year.

He is thirty-three, at shortstop for the San Diego Padres.

Reporting: MiLB.com, Boston Globe, Bleacher Report. Career and biographical data: MLB StatsAPI, via the Fever engine.