Son of former MLB star Miguel Tejada among those chasing dreams as Rocky Mountain Vibes open season

Caleb Marquez stands 6-foot-4 and is a chiseled 245 pounds. Even if you didn’t watch him take batting practice and launch balls out of UCHealth Park, the body he maintains reveals everything about how seriously he takes his professional ambitions.

“Chasing a dream,” said the Rocky Mountain Vibes first baseman, whose team will open the season Monday as the Glacier Range Riders pay a visit to the stadium that for decades housed a Triple-A team and now plays home to the Vibes of the independent Pioneer League.

Marquez didn’t start in independent ball, and like teammates such as Miguel Tejada Jr., he doesn’t intend to stay there.

Though he had football offers to play tight end at Kansas State and Missouri, Marquez signed with the Milwaukee Brewers when they drafted him out of high school in 2018. He remained with the team’s extended spring training team that first season rather than coming to Colorado Springs, which at the time hosted a Rookie League team with the Brewers.

The next year Marquez was in spring training when the coronavirus spread throughout the world. The team sent everyone home. A month later, Marquez was released.

After playing a season of NCAA Division II ball at St. Cloud State in Minnesota in 2021, he attended a tryout for the Pioneer and Pecos leagues this past spring and was picked up by the Vibes.

“I was kind of immature when I was 18 and going into the system, I was worried about the wrong things,” Marquez said. “When that gets taken away you realize how much you want it and you think, ‘Why was I even worried about all that dumb stuff?’ I think God has a plan and gives you different things along the way that will help you acquire your dream and you’ve got to take the things he shows you and learn from them and keep proving that you want to get to your dream.”

Vibes manager Francisco Cabrera is excited about working with Marquez’s swing, noting that the ball already jumps from his bat.

“He’s got a very good chance to be somebody in the future,” Cabrera said.

Tejada has memories of seeing what that dream can look like, growing up with a father who spent 16 years in Major League Baseball and captured American League MVP in 2002.

Tejada Jr. doesn’t need that level of success, but dreams of a “long baseball career.”

He was signed as an international free agent by the Phillies, signed during the pandemic and never played a minor league game. Now, at 20, he’s looking for a path back into organized baseball but also not taking for granted the chance to play in the Pioneer League.

“It’s amazing,” said Tejada, who plays outfield and third base. “It’s a chance to play baseball every day. It’s a dream.”

Marquez and Tejada are in the minority on the roster in that they are not part of the Monclova team from the Mexican League, which for the second year in a row has sent most of its top developmental team to populate the Vibes roster. Those players, too, are seeking advancement in Mexico or within MLB.

With baseball having shrunk its minor league system a year ago, many players who otherwise would have played with an affiliate are in places like Colorado Springs.

Now, they’re trying to work their way out of here.

“At the end of the day you have to go out and seize the opportunity,” Marquez said. “It’s a blessing to be here and have another chance. As far as taking the next step forward, it’s just the work you put into it.”