His kidnapper said he’d see the boy in the major leagues someday. Maybe he will.

Having no idea if he was meant to live or die, an 11-year-old Yorvis Torrealba was shoved into the back of an unknown car.

After driving downhill for 10 minutes, the car stopped and Yorvis, still blindfolded, walked, alone, with one of the four men who had abducted him and his two uncles and taken them to the Venezuelan mountains. He was told to take off his blindfold and his assailant pointed to a house off in the distance. It was Yorvis’ first and only look at the house where he spent three days against his will. He was then told to turn around.

“You know why I want you to look me in my eyes?” Yorvis recalls the abductor saying. “Because one day, you are going to make it big in the MLB and then I’m going to come up to you and ask for an autograph.”

Ten years after the abduction, the assailant may get his wish, as Yorvis is now a professional baseball player. The 21-year-old was drafted in the 20th round of the MLB draft by the Colorado Rockies, the same franchise with which his father, Yorvit Torrealba, spent the majority of his MLB career.

Yorvis’ first pro stop is with the Boise Hawks, and he shared his story with the Idaho Statesman on Tuesday.

“After that, I put it in the past,” Yorvis said. “I put it behind me and I never even bother asking my mom or my dad what went on. For me, after that happened, it’s a closed chapter. On to the next one. Enjoy life and never take a day for granted.”

Yorvis says he doesn’t know who abducted him or if they have ever been caught and says he can’t remember what that man looked like, but he does remember why he was taken. He was an easy target because his dad was a big-league ballplayer. The motive was ransom, and the demand was $500,000.

“He has been through so much adversity that nothing at this point will shock him or blow him back,” said teammate Keven Pimentel, who won a Division II national title with Yorvis while playing with the University of Tampa in June.

That 2009 day started like any other. Yorvis climbed into the car with his two uncles at 7 a.m. They routinely dropped him off at school. But before the car even got to full speed, another car jumped out of a driveway, cutting off Yorvis and his uncles, and before the driver could even sound the horn, three men jumped out of the car with guns drawn, blindfolded them and took off for the mountains.

“They kept saying they wanted the car,” Yorvis said. “I thought: ‘OK, it’s going to be fine. They just want the car.’ But we just kept going and going, and in my head I thought, ‘Well, if they wanted the car they would have taken it by now.’ They were looking for something more.”

The car drove for 45 minutes. Then, the abductors ordered the three out of the car and into a new one. They drove another 10 minutes before they finally arrived at the destination. One of the kidnappers called Yorvis’ mother, Millie, and told her they had her son and two brothers. When she hung up, they called her back and one of the assailants held the phone up to Yorvis’ mouth just long enough for him to say, “Hey, mom.” They told her if she hung up again they would kill her son. That’s when Yorvis and Millie knew the abductors meant business.

Yorvis said the abductors never directly threatened his life, but did threaten both of his uncles.

“I put my faith into God,” Yorvis said. “Whatever happens happens, and there was nothing I could do about it. My uncles couldn’t do anything about it, either. They had guns to their heads pretty much the whole time.”

Negotiations soon began and Yorvit immediately flew to Venezuela from Houston, where he was set to play that night for the Rockies, but the negotiators kept this a secret from the abductors because they believed without Yorvit there, the abductor’s demands would go down.

With Yorvit by her side, sitting in silence, Millie told the abductors the Rockies wouldn’t let Yorvit leave. The two sides settled for $50,000, per ESPN.

But the abductors never got the money because the three captives were released before the money was transferred, Yorvis told the Statesman.

“It’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy,” Yorvit told ESPN in 2009, when the kidnapping occurred. “For three days I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t drink water. I felt like my hands were tied and I couldn’t do anything.”

After the family was reunited, the Torrealbas packed up and moved permanently to the U.S. They had been contemplating the move for a while but the abduction was the final straw. Against the wishes of his mother and some friends, Yorvis still goes back to Venezuela every year to visit family.

“I’m the one that wants to go each year,” he said. “Be happy. Life is beautiful.”