MIGUEL CABRERA, THE REIGNING AMERICAN LEAGUE MVP and baseball's first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, is mad at me.

He won't say as much. In fact, he'll deny it when I ask him, straight up, at lunch in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in February. "I'm not mad," the Tigers third baseman mutters through pursed lips even though everything about his demeanor -- arms folded tightly over his stomach, eyes fixed on his crossed ankles, burly back slouched so low in his seat it'd take a bulldozer to pry him out -- suggests otherwise.

Before I managed to completely alienate one of America's most accomplished sports stars, Cabrera had been open and animated in sharing his journey from the pebbled fields of Maracay, Venezuela, to his recent standout season. This from a man who, while absolutely fearless in the batter's box, is also fiercely protective of his privacy and rarely opens up to anyone outside of a small circle of family and friends. Cabrera entrusted me with his story in part because he'd come to know me and my own American tale. Like Cabrera's, my family migrated here from a faraway place, arriving in limbo -- no longer a part of our old world, not quite at home in the new one. For a short while, I dwelled inside his bubble. Now I'm being shoved out by its keeper, who's either oddly paranoid or rightfully furious, depending on your opinion of my crime: asking him about his past issues with alcohol.

"Don't be mad, Miguel."

He doesn't respond. The interview is over. With 30 hours to go in my tour of Cabrera's world, my host will say nothing else to me aside from "hola" and "thank you." And in neither case will Cabrera look me in the eye.

To strangers, Miguel Cabrera is a man of few words and rarely ever warms up. Andrew Kaufman for ESPN

ON A FROZEN January morning in Detroit, a bus full of Tigers sits outside the players' hotel. The team is heading out on its Winter Caravan, an annual meet-and-greet with fans at sites across the state. And we're all waiting on Cabrera.

He has earned the grace period, of course. The 29-year-old is coming off one of the greatest seasons in baseball's modern era, having led his Tigers to a runner-up finish in the World Series while also becoming the first player since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 to top the league in home runs, RBIs and batting average. And that hallowed Triple Crown is just the latest addition to a dazzling collection of achievements -- seven All-Star selections, two batting titles, two home run titles and a World Series win accrued over a 10-year career that has earned Cabrera every bit of his $152 million contract as well as the admiration of his peers, who in November voted him Player of the Year.

Now all eyes are on Cabrera, who arrives a few minutes late, dressed in a black hoodie and baggy jeans. A Tigers staffer facilitates a curbside introduction. "What's up, Miguel!" I yelp. "Hello," he replies. "Looks like I'll be bugging you for a while," I add. "Thank you," he says. That's it. Cabrera slaps five with his boys and claims the back row. I sit near the front.

I'd been warned that to strangers Cabrera is a man of few words. He loathes interviews and rarely ever warms up to outsiders. Still, Cabrera's reps felt that with all his success recently, the time was right for their client's first all-access profile. But first, they cautioned, I'd have to get him to like me. That's why I'm in Detroit -- to be likable.

With Cabrera inaccessible, I cozy up to centerfielder Austin Jackson and ask him about his teammate's shyness. "It's funny to hear that he's shy," he says. "With us he's the opposite -- each day he comes in with a smile and a great attitude." Justin Verlander agrees: "He's kind of guarded, but once you get to know him, he's a very jovial guy." Adds GM Dave Dombrowski, who's known Cabrera for 14 years: "We'd like to see him retire as a Tiger. He's a great player, but it's the way he handles himself, his smile, the way he is with the youngsters -- he represents your organization in fine fashion."

The consensus is clear: Cabrera is a goofy guy who plays baseball with unbridled joy, puts only family before team, respects his teammates and adores children. But he hates the spotlight.

Unfortunately for him, that's exactly what the Winter Caravan is all about. Its second stop is the North American International Auto Show, where the General Motors display area is teeming with folks eager to ask the quiet Tiger questions. How does it feel to be MVP? "Awesome." They laugh. How was it moving to third base? Cabrera points to his now-wide orbs. "See my eyes?" They laugh some more.

Cabrera's shift to third last season to accommodate incoming first baseman Prince Fielder was a huge hit with the locals. A first baseman since 2008, Cabrera began training for his new job immediately upon Fielder's signing last January, staying late to take grounders during spring training. "That kind of sacrifice for the good of the team rubs people in a good way, especially in a blue-collar town like Detroit," says Andrew Travis, 27, a fan. Nobody appreciated it more than Fielder. "For a superstar to do what he did for me, they have to have confidence in their skills and be willing to work hard," Fielder says. "I'll forever be grateful for Miguel's sacrifice."

This is why the Tigers adore Cabrera. "It starts with the fact that he's a great kid," manager Jim Leyland explains, "but don't kid yourself -- these guys are smart enough to know they're playing with one of the greatest players of all time. That's part of the equation."

Still, few of Cabrera's teammates truly know him. Even with Verlander, his teammate of five years, Cabrera can be prone to awkwardness. Traveling in a chauffeured SUV at one point during the Caravan, I watched the two men sit in stone-cold silence for nearly 10 minutes, the slugger twiddling on his phone. Finally Verlander lobbed an ice-breaker: "Whatchya watching?" No response. Another excruciating minute later, Miggy mercifully offered the pitcher his phone. On the screen was an image of Cabrera's baby son, a tiny bat in his hands. Verlander laughed heartily. "That's awesome," he said.

Back at the auto show, the rest of the team scatters to gawk at the latest rides. But Miggy couldn't look more bored. "Not a car guy?" I ask him. "Naw," Cabrera replies. I concur: "Waste of f -- ing money." He nods. "You curse so much," he says. Damn, strike one.

Cabrera eventually sees something he likes, a Jeep Wrangler Sand Trooper. My high school ride was a '92 Wrangler, I tell him, "the girls f -- ing loved it." Whoops, strike two. I'm toast.

But wait -- Cabrera's smiling. Then he floats a question out of nowhere: "You do archery?"

IT'S A WARM winter day in Fort Lauderdale, two weeks after the Detroit trip, and Cabrera is staring down a synthetic deer at Bass Pro Shops. He lifts his compound bow and lets the carbon-fiber arrow fly.

Thwap.

It hits the deer's "kill zone." If it were real, it'd be dead. "Mejor," Cabrera says. He's happy.

The itinerary for our two days together is vague but includes a lunchtime interview, dinner with the Cabrera family and archery, Cabrera's latest hobby. He used to play golf. He didn't enjoy golf because he is a terrible golfer. Miggy is a great archer. Miggy loves archery.

"He's a great kid," manager Jim Leyland says. Andrew Kaufman for ESPN

As Dombrowski put it, "Miguel doesn't like to be embarrassed." The GM was citing the extra work Cabrera put in at third base, but he could've been talking about any of Cabrera's pursuits. "When I do something," Cabrera says, "I don't want to be second best. That's the right way." And that way leads to a lot of overtime. While it is true that Cabrera is blessed with physical gifts -- a hawk's vision, a bear's legs, a pianist's hands, the torso of a lumberjack -- he is a worker and, says Dombrowski, "an encyclopedia of pitchers." Cabrera studies their hitting charts, intensely observes their pitches from the dugout and, legend has it, remembers every pitch by every starting pitcher he's ever faced. But there's a limit: He doesn't like game tape. It leads to overthinking, and he thinks too much as it is. "My wife says I don't listen when she talks," he'll explain, "but when people talk, I'm in my own world. I think, always thinking."

Cabrera doesn't overthink his archery. He picked up the sport last year, because hunting is a pastime of his kin, and kept at it because he found it relaxing. In November he spent the tense hours prior to the MVP announcement at this range with his agent of more than six years, Diego Bentz, who is with us this day to serve as communication facilitator and protector. But things are going well. I'd even surprised Cabrera earlier with my choppy but excellently pronounced Spanish. ("Mi espanol es baser.") He seemed confused, so I explained: I acquired English as a child, and when you're fluent in multiple languages early enough, you can nail pronunciation in any tongue. He nodded knowingly.

After several rounds, Cabrera extends his weapon to me. Then he hides beside a bench in the back. "He gonna kill us," he warns.

And he may be right. I lift the heavy bow and let loose on a wolf.

Thud.

"Where did it go?" a clerk shouts. I have no clue where it went. Nobody does. "They can't find your arrow!" Cabrera howls. It'll be several minutes before the range's four-man crew locates the thing, high up the back wall. "Get the ladder!" This is embarrassing. "Good job," Cabrera says, once he stops cackling.

LIKE THE ARCHERY range, Islamorada Fish Company is a comfortable spot for Cabrera. The staff knows to give him a corner table where nobody can bother him. The plan, hatched with Cabrera's reps, is to play the interview by ear: If he isn't feeling it, hit pause, take a short off-the-record break. But Cabrera is feeling our first topic.

"Love movies," he says. "It starts when I met my girlfriend in Venezuela." That girl, now wife Rosangel, was 13 at the time. The teenagers spent most dates at the theater, and six years after they met, Cabrera, by that point a Marlin, returned to Venezuela to claim the only woman he'd ever loved. "Because we were so young," Cabrera says, "her family doesn't like it. But we said, 'This is what we want.'" Miguel and Rosangel wed in a church, "and when we return to U.S.," he continues, "we go to any movie. And we buy some movies." Translation of "some": 1,000 DVDs. Cabrera loves comedies. Rosangel prefers scary movies. "I get bad dreams," he says. "Like, Se7en -- o'my god, that's scary."

The Cabreras have three children: Christopher, 1; Isabella, 2; and Rosangel, 7, whom everyone calls Brisel. "When Brisel was born, I was 22." He laughs. "I was excited to play with her." If there is one thing that Cabrera does better than baseball, it's playtime. That includes years of goofy "conditioning drills" with Dombrowki's now-13-year-old boy, Landon, "paper baseball" with his baby cousins and, in South Florida, basketball with the neighborhood kids. But one playpen stands above the rest. "In Venezuela we always talk about Disney World," he says. "Now I go every chance -- a dream come true." Cabrera can't count the number of times he's been to the park, but his teammates say it's a lot, and sometimes he drags them with him. He buys his own Mickey T-shirts and waits in line with everyone else. "At Disney you can do anything," he says, still in awe. "So much fun."

The Tigers were right; Cabrera is a big kid. And kids like to hang with their own. "They're happy," he says. "They make you happy." And perhaps most important to Cabrera, their motives are easily understood. "They always speak the truth," he says. "Adults, no. When you grow up, people don't speak the truth. You can see, when you trust people, you help them." Then, he continues, "they do something bad." Cabrera isn't agitated when he says this and, in the moment, seems to be speaking to a litany of betrayals, the kind that come when you're young, famous and wary. Trust is a topic Cabrera returns to often. Trust, he will insist, is why his inner circle is limited to long-timers from Maracay. And trust, or rather the lack thereof, is why when Cabrera swings his last bat for money, he will move back there.

Jose Miguel Cabrera was raised in a small home with one bathroom, a kitchen and two rooms in a community of five homes where extended family lived. Cabrera bunked with his younger sister, Ruth, but preferred to spend most of his time with a rowdy brood of friends who threw punches on the diamond and called Cabrera cabeza tren (train head) for his large noggin. Cabrera disliked the handle but knew "if you get mad, they call you that every day. Can't show it."

Young Cabrera learned to keep his thoughts bottled up, and the older one isn't much different. His parents, he says, are divorced. His father, Miguel, ran an auto shop. His mom, Gregoria, was a longtime veteran of the national softball team but left her son's training to his uncle, David Torres, a former minor league baseball player. Cabrera was 15 when he tried out for Louie Eljaua, then a Marlins scout. Impressed by the boy's sure fielding, cannon arm and spring-loaded bat, Eljaua called scouting director Al Avila, who traveled to Venezuela to watch Cabrera play before phoning his boss. "This kid's a special talent," Avila told then-Marlins GM Dave Dombrowski.

At 16 Cabrera signed with the Marlins for $1.8 million. At 20 he smacked a walk-off homer in his big league debut. Four months after that, he was in his first World Series, squaring off against Roger Clemens. True to form, the Rocket began by firing a fastball past Cabrera's chin. The kid stared at the legend and then got to work, with two swinging strikes, another ball and two foul-offs before eventually driving the seventh pitch over the rightfield wall. "It still makes me smile," recalls Mike Redmond, his former teammate and the current Marlins manager. "I looked at Jeff Conine and said, 'This kid isn't afraid of anything.'"

When I ask Cabrera whether he was afraid facing Clemens, he shrugs and says, "Naw." Okay then, I counter, "What's your biggest fear on earth?"

"People. You can't trust people."

I ask Cabrera whether he'd been wronged by anyone in particular. Bentz lends a hand: "When Miguel gets on the plane for America, he's a kid dealing with a new language, culture, pressure. Then he wins the World Series. Now everybody wants something, here and in Venezuela. Miguel is loyal. He expects the same." Cabrera won't elaborate except to say that, for him, "baseball was easy. Outside is the hard part."

When Cabrera arrived in the States, he shared an apartment in Florida with five Latin American A-ball players. Back then, "I speak no English -- zero. You can't do anything because you don't go places where you have to speak. You go to eat, you eat same thing: Burger King, No. 3. They ask, 'French fries?' You say yes. They ask for size, you say yes. They ask, 'Medium or large?' You say yes." First he signed up for English classes. Later he devoured newspapers at the advice of Adrian Gonzalez, his Rookie-ball roommate. "People make fun of me because they say I see only the pictures," he says, "but I learn to see the words they say."

But just as Cabrera was growing more comfortable with the language, as well as the forgiving ears of his teammates, he was rejected by the Marlins. In December of 2007, after his fifth season with the ballclub, he recalls in a hushed tone, "I was driving and the GM and manager call me, tell me I was traded to Tigers. I ask, 'Why? I don't want to leave. I want to stay. I feel comfortable.' They say that's the way it is." Cabrera would come to love Detroit -- not the cold, but the "humble values" of the organization and the locals. But his discomfort with the reactions to his struggles with the English language still makes him nervous. Which is why, even though his English is just fine, distrust keeps him quiet. "If I say something wrong, it's a big thing on Twitter."

Bentz chimes in again. "This offseason is different," he says. "A lot of people are around him. You have to be careful."

I REPEATEDLY OFFER Cabrera a courtesy timeout. With each, he counters with, "I'm good." It'll be an hour before we order lunch, and when his meal arrives -- grouper with a baked potato -- he ignores it, and not because of his weight. Cabrera laughs at our obsession with his scale readings. "When they call me fat I only 255, and I weighed more [than that] when people say I'd lost 25 pounds!" (Little Gordito, as Leyland calls him, is at 268 now, and the skipper is fine with that.)

At various times, Cabrera and I bond over the similarities in our stories. When the Alipours left Iran for America, we sprinted to Disneyland every chance we got, and in those early years we dined at only one place -- Burger King. My empathy seems to comfort him, but he really doesn't need much prodding. "I trying to let people know me better," he says. In fact, he's gaining a reputation around the league for being an in-game chatterbox. Says one starting pitcher: "From the first pitch, he's talking: 'What's up, you want a base hit here?'" Adds a reliever: "He has the best personality in the game." And Cabrera puts it to good use in regular meetings with the Tigers' Latino prospects. "I talk about their girlfriend back home," he explains. "I say, 'Be a f -- ing man! If you no work hard, no get money, your girlfriend get happy with another man over there!'"

"After that meeting," he adds, "half the guys call their girlfriends and say, 'Tell me the truth, what are you doing!'"

Cabrera is on fire now, and we're laughing as much as speaking. But we've been speaking for two hours, and I have one last topic to discuss. I inform him of the coming questions in the same way I'd alerted his reps: Asking about a subject's warts is standard operating procedure for a profile, and I'd like to discuss his highly publicized wart, alcohol use. More than standard operating procedure, however, fans know very little about Cabrera outside of two high-profile alcohol-related legal scrapes.