BRADENTON, Fla. — His name is Iván Manuel Nova Guance, and my man, he's got it all.
He does now, anyway.
Because all he had going for him before this spring was being linked with the runner-up for Miss Universe, bankrolling millions of dollars, pitching for the planet's most prestigious baseball franchise and ... oh, yeah, in case anyone missed it, being linked with the runner-up for Miss Universe.
Today, Nova and his immediate family share a heritage, a collective life of wealth and health, and a plush Downtown Pittsburgh apartment.
With mom.
"My mom," Nova was clarifying the other day in the Bill McKechnie clubhouse after his final sweat-free spring start for the Pirates. "She's there with us. In the house. I asked for her to come. It was very important for me."
This was where I had to interject. Because that sounds stickier than a rosin bag left in the rain.
"OK, you know, we talked," he continued, now with a broad grin. "My wife, it's her kitchen, her house. I just tell them, 'Leave me out of it. I don't want to be in the middle.' But having my mother there, helping, being there for me, it's very important."
So important, truth be told, that Nova's mother, Altagracia, just might wind up the MVP of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's 131st season that opens with a Monday matinee in Boston.
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It was never going to be easy. Not for either side.
On the Pirates' end, it would require, quite possibly, an unprecedented commitment, both in faith and in finances.
Neal Huntington had plucked Nova from the Yankees at Major League Baseball's trade deadline Aug. 1, sending two middling prospects, pitcher Stephen Tarpley and outfielder Tito Polo, to New York. The exchange easily could have looked silly. Nova would lug over a 4.90 ERA, as well as 19 home runs over 97 1/3 innings. He was 29, so he was very much a known commodity. To boot, he was making $4.1 million to be all that and, oh, yeah, the Pirates were desperate for rotation help in the midst of a pennant race.
It wound up a wonderful move, of course. Nova's 11 starts saw him pitch three complete games, most of anyone with the Pirates since Zach Duke over a full 2009 season, with a 3.06 ERA, a dramatically reduced four home runs over 64 2/3 innings and -- sit down for this -- 52 strikeouts against three walks.
Three!
Baseball evaluators, old and new, are loath to judge upon small sample sizes. Huntington and his analytics people are hardly an exception. But there's nothing that wins them over quite like command. And Nova was about as commanding as it gets.
"We've watched and studied Ivan a long time, and we've never seen him throw like that," Clint Hurdle said. "Sometimes that can make you wonder whether it's real. It should make you wonder. But when you're seeing strikes like that, all the poise, all the character, the ball going right where he wants again and again ... that's a skill."
So Nova passed all those tests. He'd been identified, absolutely, as part of the Pirates' solution going forward. And when placed in the context of a rotation that could ill afford to lose another piece, his value inflated all the more.
But that would be the easy part. Paying him would be something else.
Even at his age, even with his spotty history in parts of seven seasons with the Yankees -- 53-39 with a 4.41 ERA and roughly a home run every eight innings -- the free-agent market loomed like rainbow gold. The payday of a lifetime awaited. All 30 teams needed starting pitching, and all could presumably pony up to invest in a late bloomer.
Which is when something crazy occurred: Nova disappeared. At least his name did, from all of the various reports and rumor mills once free agency was underway. All kinds of lesser pitchers were getting signed, a few to huge eight-figure checks, but he wasn't being connected with anyone.
Why?
"I didn't want to go anywhere else."
Well, fine, but that much was made powerfully clear in an interview he and I did Sept. 20, 2016, in Milwaukee. Time was ticking on the season, the Pirates had yet to extend an offer and he was getting nervous. He didn't like the feeling. He didn't like the fear of leaving. And he really, really didn't like that he hadn't heard of any negotiations to that point.
Ivan Nova all through spring training. - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS____________________
