Ednel Javier "Javy" Báez (born December 1, 1992), nicknamed "El Mago" (Spanish for "The Magician"), is a Puerto Rican professional baseball utility player for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball (MLB). Born in Puerto Rico, Báez attended high school in Jacksonville, Florida. The Cubs selected Báez with the ninth overall selection of the 2011 MLB draft. He made his MLB debut in 2014.\n', '

He was the first player for the Cubs to steal home in a postseason game since Jimmy Slagle in 1907. In October 2016, Báez was named the National League Championship Series co-MVP alongside left-handed starter Jon Lester as the Chicago Cubs clinched their 2016 National League pennant.\n', '

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Báez moved to Florida in 2005 along with his mother and siblings, two brothers and a sister. The move was so that his sister, Noely, could get medical treatment for her spina bifida condition. In Puerto Rico he and his two brothers, Gadiel and Rolando, became familiar with the sport through their father, Ángel Luis Báez who, before his death when Javier was ten, heavily influenced their life and was responsible for their interest in baseball. The brothers would later immortalize this interest by getting tattoos of Major League Baseball\'s logo, which symbolized that "baseball has been in [their] lives forever." As a middle school student, it took time for Báez to adapt because he was unable to fluently speak or understand English. Báez eventually learned the language through trial and error in a process that lasted for three years, memorizing words before knowing their actual meaning.\n', '

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