Side gig keeping Tides infielder very much in style

Ray Navarrete

By RICH RADFORD
The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK - One way or another, Ray Navarrete is counting on making the big time. If it's not in a New York Mets uniform, then he'll fashion an outfit of his own.

Navarrete, a utility infielder for the Norfolk Tides, is also founder of his own clothing line called "DigMi" which can be found at TheDigmiNation.com.

The name is a play off Navarrete's days when he was with the Altoona Curve, a farm club of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Navarrete and a few of his teammates were such sharp dressers that their manager, Dale Sweenie, nicknamed them "The Dig Me Tribe."

"Sweenie thought we were outlandish in how we dressed," Navarrete said.

Dig Me Nation was born, with Navarrete and three of his Altoona teammates: Sean Burnett, Chris Duffy and Josh Bonifay.

Navarrete then took his enterprise to another level, going from self-made stylist to haberdasher. He called Joe Cuervo, a college teammate at Seton Hall and childhood friend, and invited him to spring training in Florida two years ago. At the time, Cuervo was working for Merrill Lynch in Columbia, Md.

"I told him, 'Come to Bradenton, hang out, let me take you to dinner,' " Navarrete said. "He comes down and I tell him, 'Look, I've got this crazy idea, but I need a 50/50 partner.' I knew he was going to say, 'No.' '

Instead, Cuervo told him, "We can do this."

The two had known each other since they were 15 and were always bouncing ideas off one another.

"Usually, Ray will throw out an idea or I'll come up with one, then we'll look at each other and say, 'Aw, that's ridiculous,' ' Cuervo said. "Not this time."

"Dig Me" became "DigMi." Navarrete and Cuervo started producing a fashion line. They lined up a factory in Peru. They locked down a distribution warehouse in Brooklyn. Cuervo began trademarking the name and handling the legal issues. Navarrete started networking.

When they unveiled their product, which Navarrete calls "a cross between Polo and Abercrombie and Fitch," they did it at Jay-Z's 40/40 Club in New York. Seems Jay-Z, one of the movers and shakers in the rap music industry, is a big baseball fan.

Navarrete's ultimate goal with this venture?

"I want to be the first corporate CEO with a .300 batting average," Navarrete said. "I think this business is helping me as a baseball player. I can balance a couple of tough games and I can take my mind off an 0 for 4 day by going home and delving into my business responsibilities.

"But this is by no means taking me away from my primary goal, and that's to make it to the major leagues. This isn't a backup plan. This is just a side gig. Baseball's something I'm willing to do until I die trying."

Something his business partner fully understands. Cuervo played a year in Italy and then two seasons in the independent Frontier League for the Washington Wild Things before hanging up his cleats.

"Dreams die hard," Cuervo said. "It took four knee injuries to kill mine."

Cuervo said he is devoting much of his time this summer to product placement, hoping to land the clothing line in stores and boutiques around the country.

"Inevitably, this will be big," Tides teammate Cory Aldridge said. "Ray is way more stylish than me. I'm a jeans and polo shirt guy, but all of the sudden Ray is putting stuff together for me and I'm saying, 'Hey, that's a pretty good look.' Ray looks at clothing a lot different than most of us."

Said Navarrete: "Everyone has their own sense of style. We let the customer choose how to mix and match and promote individuality with style. Our demographic? Our demographic is people."