Nine years ago, the sweltering summer raged on in a sleepy Tennessee town. August is a cruel month in the Appalachian Valley. The Volunteers were still a month away from their first football game in the rabid SEC state. Moonshiners were scouting their spots for the fall. But inside Kingsport’s Hunter Wright Stadium, a conversation would take place that would reshape the organization’s future. A young, fresh-faced 17-year-old Wilmer Flores had a chat with Kingsport Mets manager Pedro Lopez.

It was a few days before Flores’ 18th birthday. The native of Valencia, VZ had never really been away from home prior to inking a deal with the Mets and being sent to the rookie-level league.

“I was a home body,” recalled Flores. “Growing up, I was always at home; always around family. I don’t remember ever being away for even a few days. Suddenly, I was in a different country, trying to learn English and then my great-grandmother called.”

Teolinda talked to her great-grandson and said how much she missed him. This was the woman who lived with Wilmer for the first four years of his life. She would toss him over her shoulders as a baby, spoil him as he got a bit older and protect him from being grounded when he was a mischievous youngster. Confused. Lonely. Flores ached to return home.

Instead, he turned to Lopez.

“He told me to finish the final five weeks of the season strong and then I could spend time with my family,” recalled Flores. “That perspective made a huge difference.”

A few years later, that difference would be felt in the Big Apple. Without that intervention, there is no special relationship with Mets fans. No dramatic homer vs. the Nationals. No emotional scene at Citi Field that captured the hearts of baseball fans.

Flores was excited to return home at the end of the year — reunited with Teolinda, his mother, Sodely, and his father, Wilmer.

“My mom always took me to baseball practices,” said Flores, who is called Catire by his entire family. A nickname necessitated because his dad and two of his three brothers are also named Wilmer.

Why Catire? Well, Wilmer had blonde hair as a baby and Catire is Venezuelan slang for a blondie.

“I had to get him to baseball practice because I had to get him out of the house,” laughed Sodely. “To be honest, we never thought he would go this far, not because he didn’t have the talent, we just never thought like that. The day the Mets scout showed up to the house we were all in shock and (Wilmer) said he wanted to chase his dream.”