DUNEDIN, Fla. — When the Toronto Blue Jays’ public-address announcer boomed the arrival into the batter’s box of a Yankees player named Rodriguez on Saturday, there was neither a boo nor a cheer, nor even a single pair of clapping hands from among the 5,511 fans at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium.

Just silence.

This Rodriguez, after all, was the other Rodriguez in Yankees camp: Eddy Rodriguez, a 29-year-old journeyman catcher. Not the famous No. 13, Alex Rodriguez, although if you add the two digits on the back of Eddy Rodriguez’s pinstriped jersey, they equal 13. He wears No. 67, a sure sign that he is a nonroster invitee, though one whose journey, in his telling, is worthy of an ovation.

On a balmy summer day, Aug. 31, 1993, Rodriguez, then age 7, gathered with his family in El Santo, a speck of land on the northern part of Cuba protected by several barrier keys. The family often went there to fish. What young Eddy did not realize was that his father, Edilio, had been burying drums of diesel fuel in the sand at El Santo.

As the sun set, Rodriguez; his parents; his 10-year-old sister, Yanisbet; and his 16-year-old cousin, Carlos, boarded a 17-foot wooden boat, left everything behind and ventured into the Straits of Florida for what they hoped would be an uneventful 90-mile journey to the United States.