By Janis Mork

August 17, 2013 (El Cajon)- Born missing three limbs due to a rare birth defect, Alex Montoya has triumphed over adversity. Now manager of Latino affairs for the San Diego Padres, he met representatives from Cuyamaca College after speaking at the Hall of Champions in Balboa Park and was invited to deliver the commencement speech.

Montoya moved here from Columbia when he was 4 years old. “It was absolutely a new world. It was at times scary and at times daunting, but really it was refreshing and exhilarating,” he told ECM. “I realized that there were boundless opportunities.”

He learned English by watching baseball. Montoya is most passionate about baseball because “it’s a very fair and very beautiful sport..I quickly saw that it was America’s past time… [It] was something that really stayed with me my entire life.”