Edgar Enrique Rentería born August 7, 1975 in Barranquilla, Colombia is a shortstop in Major League Baseball who plays for the Atlanta Braves.
Renteria’s was nearly three months shy of legal drinking age when the Florida Marlins called him up from Triple-A Charlotte in May 1996. He finished second to L.A’s Todd Hollandsworrth in NL Rookie of the Year balloting after batting .309 with 16 steals and 68 runs scored in 106 games.
In 1997, Renteria’s steady glove and speedy feet helped Florida claim the NL’s wild-card spot. Foreshadowing his Fall Classic heroics, he won Game One of the Division Series by singling off San Francisco stopper Roberto Hernandez with two outs in the ninth inning to plate Marlins’ backstop Charles Johnson.
The stage was much bigger though when Renteria came to the plate in Game Seven of the World Series with the score knotted at 2-2 in the bottom of the 11th inning. Renteria lined a sharp single up the middle off Cleveland’s Charles Nagy, driving home Craig Counsell and making Florida champions of the baseball world.
Renteria survived one more season in Florida as the franchise dismantled its high-priced free-agent core in favor of inexpensive neophytes. “I was a 22-year-old veteran,” he said of playing for the gutted team.
The Marlins dealt Renteria to the St. Louis Cardinals in December 1998 for pitchers Braden Looper, Carlos Almazar and shortstop Pablo Ozuna. The young shortstop was sorry to leave the heavily Latino-influenced city where he had felt at home. “I’m going to miss Miami,” he said. “The fans in Miami there love me. I think I might have a little problem in St. Louis because I think they don’t have Latin food over there. Colombia is close to Miami.”
In 1999, his first season with the Redbirds, Renteria batted .275 with 92 runs scored and 37 steals. He celebrated his first trip back to Florida by launching two home runs at Pro Player Stadium on May 31, 1999.
The following year he set career highs with 16 home runs, 76 RBIs and 94 runs scored. Batting first or second most of the season, he set the table for the high-powered Cardinals’ offense that won the NL Central and reached the League Championship Series.
After struggling terribly during the first half of 2001, Renteria heated up after the All-Star break, but still finished with career lows in batting average, hits and runs scored while seeing his stolen base totals drop for the fourth straight season.
Shakira Mebarak Ripoll born in the coastal city of Barranquilla, Colombia, Shakira who goes by her first name only, is that blend of raw talent, brains and charisma that only rarely comes along in any field. Her name, which in Arabic means "woman full of grace," belies her ancestry. She is the daughter of a Colombian mother and a Lebanese father, a jeweler and writer whose Arabic background greatly influenced his daughter. Shakira's fondness for music was apparent early on, and she started winning local and national talent contests at age 10. By 13, she had signed a record deal with Sony in Colombia, which resulted in her first album, "Magia ," (Magic) a compilation of songs she wrote between the ages of 8 and 13.
It was an effort that put Shakira in Colombia's musical map, and led to her being chosen to represent her country at the Festival OTI in Spain. Because she was under the minimum age of 16, she wasn't allowed to participate. So instead, Shakira recorded a second album of original material, "Peligro" (Danger). At that point, Shakira took a break from music, graduated from high school (at age 15-really) and came back with a vengeance. The result was the phenomenally successful "Pies Descalzos," a hit-laden smash, which has sold close to four million copies worldwide. Shakira became an international sensation touring for an almost solid two years, playing her songs to sold out audiences throughout the world.
In Brazil alone, "Pies Descalzos" sold in excess of 900,000 copies, leading Shakira to record remixes in Portuguese for her Brazilian fans. She abandoned the light pop format she had been doing and declined her label's suggestion to explore more commercial avenues. Instead, she insisted on recording her very own brand of music: a blend of pop and rock that was unprecedented for a Colombian musician, much less a woman. Such a smashing hit seems impossible to surpass. But Shakira has done it with "Donde Estan los Ladrones," a collection of potential hits that further explores the realms of rock 'n' roll without losing Shakira's authenticity. "It is totally refreshing for me to work with an artist who knows exactly what she wants, both at a musical and a personal level," said Emilio Estefan. "Her music is Shakira. It's real music." No wonder, then, that it was Shakira who was chosen among dozens of female Latin singers to grace the cover of Time Magazine in a recent article titled "Era of the Rock era". Last year, the Colombian government designated Shakira as an official goodwill ambassador, the Pope granted her an audience in the Vatican, and she was named Latin Female Artist of the Year at the World Music Awards in Monaco.
Shakira had began writing and composing music at the age of eight. One of the first songs she wrote was "Tus Gafas Oscuras", whose lyrical message revolved around her father and his grief over a son who had passed away due to a car accident. At the age of ten, Shakira applied for her school choir, but she was rejected because her voice had been noted as "too strong." Friends teased her by saying she sounded like a goat Shakira was deeply hurt and considered giving up on singing, but instead of that she started looking for other singing opportunities. She decided to compete in a weekly television singing competition for children, Vivan Los ninos. Shakira won the contest.
Between the ages of ten to thirteen, Shakira was invited to various events in Barranquilla, and became a local celebrity. At that time she met local theatre producer Monica Ariza, who was impressed with Shakira and helped to make her known outside Barranquilla. During a flight from Barranquilla to Bogotá, Ariza happened to be sitting next to Sony Colombia executive Ciro Vargas. Vargas agreed to hold an audition for Shakira, which took place a few weeks later in a hotel lobby. Vargas was impressed and returned to the Sony office and gave Shakira's cassette to the song and artist director, but he was not excited at all, and thought Shakira was "a lost cause."
Vargas was convinced that Shakira had talent, and set up a surprise audition in Bogotá. He tricked the Sony Colombia executives to this bar, and around midnight he announced he had a surprise: Shakira. She sang three songs, and her performance was a hit. Shakira was subsequently signed to write and record three albums.
Born Shakira Mebarak Ripoll in the coastal city of Barranquilla, Colombia, Shakira who goes by her first name only, is that blend of raw talent, brains and charisma that only rarely comes along in any field. Her name, which in Arabic means "woman full of grace," belies her ancestry. She is the daughter of a Colombian mother and a Lebanese father, a jeweler and writer whose Arabic background greatly influenced his daughter. Shakira's fondness for music was apparent early on, and she started winning local and national talent contests at age 10. By 13, she had signed a record deal with Sony in Colombia, which resulted in her first album, "Magia ," (Magic) a compilation of songs she wrote between the ages of 8 and 13.
It was an effort that put Shakira in Colombia's musical map, and led to her being chosen to represent her country at the Festival OTI in Spain. Because she was under the minimum age of 16, she wasn't allowed to participate. So instead, Shakira recorded a second album of original material, "Peligro" (Danger). At that point, Shakira took a break from music, graduated from high school (at age 15-really) and came back with a vengeance. The result was the phenomenally successful "Pies Descalzos," a hit-laden smash, which has sold close to four million copies worldwide. Shakira became an international sensation touring for an almost solid two years, playing her songs to sold out audiences throughout the world.
In Brazil alone, "Pies Descalzos" sold in excess of 900,000 copies, leading Shakira to record remixes in Portuguese for her Brazilian fans. She abandoned the light pop format she had been doing and declined her label's suggestion to explore more commercial avenues. Instead, she insisted on recording her very own brand of music: a blend of pop and rock that was unprecedented for a Colombian musician, much less a woman. Such a smashing hit seems impossible to surpass. But Shakira has done it with "Donde Estan los Ladrones," a collection of potential hits that further explores the realms of rock 'n' roll without losing Shakira's authenticity. "It is totally refreshing for me to work with an artist who knows exactly what she wants, both at a musical and a personal level," said Emilio Estefan. "Her music is Shakira. It's real music." No wonder, then, that it was Shakira who was chosen among dozens of female Latin singers to grace the cover of Time Magazine in a recent article titled "Era of the Rock era". Last year, the Colombian government designated Shakira as an official goodwill ambassador, the Pope granted her an audience in the Vatican, and she was named Latin Female Artist of the Year at the World Music Awards in Monaco.
