This story is also posted in Spanish. Read it here.

THE CRACK OF the bat draws a sardonic cheer from the Citi Field crowd. It isn't the thunderclap of a moonshot, or even the sharp whack of a liner. Nevertheless, the 28,113 in attendance rise; they've waited in the 40-degree winds for something, anything, interesting to happen, and so it has. Bartolo Colón, the now-43-year-old former Met, fan favorite and notoriously awful hitter, has somehow made contact. Colón's grounder is easy work for the shortstop. So, rather than sprinting, Colón jogs three-quarters of the way to first base, turns and jogs back to the Atlanta Braves dugout -- all while holding on to his bat.

At 5-foot-11 and 285 pounds, Colón looks out of place on a ballfield even when he's not carrying a pine around the basepaths. Yet here he is, with 235 career wins, nine shy of passing Hall of Famer Juan Marichal as the winningest Dominican pitcher in history. He's a four-time All-Star, a Cy Young winner, the last remaining active former Montreal Expo and the subject of countless GIFs and YouTube videos celebrating his accomplishments, round belly and penguin-like gait. Colón's only homer has become the subject of unusual tributes, including a USA Today oral history, a Topps collector's edition baseball card and a video mash-up combined with footage from "The Natural."

This start in Queens on April 5 is the pitcher's homecoming. During the previous three seasons, Colón played an integral role in the Mets' resurgence, which saw them make the playoffs in consecutive years. As a Met, Colón averaged 196.1 innings, a 3.90 ERA and a WHIP of 1.23. When he signed with the Atlanta Braves, Mets ace Noah Syndergaard tweeted a crying emoji.

After this game -- a two-hit, one-run, six-inning effort for Colón -- Braves manager Brian Snitker is asked if anyone told Colón he was supposed to drop the bat. Snitker laughs. "At his age, with 20 years in the big leagues, he can do whatever the hell he wants."

This was not the first time Colón has laid claim to a big league bat for longer than necessary. It brought to mind nothing so much as his famous home run, at a game last May at Petco Park off a 90 mph James Shields fastball -- a moment that Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen called "one of the great moments in the history of baseball" during the broadcast. "The impossible has happened. Bartolo Colón has gone deep!"

Colón, the oldest player to hit his first home run in major league history, smiled the moment he made contact. For a split second, he appeared to want to drop his bat -- instead, he lifted it up above his waist. Whether from compulsion or lack of experience, Colón held on to the stick until he was halfway up the first base line. Or maybe it was something else -- maybe it was just because he likes holding a baseball bat so damn much.

Bartolo Colon has become something of a cult icon in baseball. Pouya Dianat/Atlanta Braves

THIS SEASON MARKS Colón's 20th in the majors, but his time in the sport predates that by decades. His hometown of Altamira, Dominican Republic, is a sleepy, farming town of 26,000 that features a baseball stadium with a life-sized statue of Colón at its entrance. As a child, he spent afternoons and weekends under the hot Caribbean sun, picking beans and transporting heavy bags across town for his father.

"From childhood, he was very strong," his father, Miguel Valerio Colón, told The New York Times. "He was capable of pulping up to 1,000 crates of coffee beans in a day."

As a break from the labor, Colón would drop his bags of beans and play a few innings of baseball with neighborhood kids. They used balls made of cloth. He learned accuracy throwing rocks at coconuts and mangoes. He would play until it was time to pick up the sack and work.

"He enjoys the game. Whenever he pitches, it looks like he doesn't have bad moments," says Braves ace Julio Teheran, a 26-year-old pitcher. "When he gets an out, he enjoys it. When he gives up a homer, he's usually the same person."

Watching Colón play, one gets the sense that baseball -- whether it's in a World Series game or playing catch during a workout -- reminds him of home. During the offseason, he says, he plays in a Friday night softball league -- as a hitter (of course, he says, he hits homers). A photo of him dressed in his softball uniform, crushing a line drive, can be seen on his Facebook page, above the caption, "At bat." There's also a video of him coming off the field holding a softball. The caption: "What I like!!!!"

"I'm a happy man," he says, through an interpreter. "I get the opportunity to work, and that's why I want to go out [and play]. I want to keep doing that."

Colón's obvious love for the game -- not to mention his body type, long a focal point for haters and adulators alike -- has made him something of a cult icon in baseball, even despite a banned-substance suspension and a varied career (Colón has thrown fewer than 100 innings five times, including a four-year stretch (2006-09) during which he never appeared in more than 19 games). Out of love, fans nicknamed him Big Sexy. To ridicule him, The New York Post ran an article under the headline, "LARDBALL."

"I've always been confident in my athleticism and my body type," Colón says.

In the winter of 2013, the Mets twice sent infielder Ruben Tejada to a fitness and nutrition camp to help him lose weight. A few months later, after seven scoreless innings, Mets manager Terry Collins took Colón out of the game. As Colón walked into the dugout, he stopped in front of Tejada, grabbed two fistfuls of his own belly and jiggled his paunch up and down.

"He's just such a great personality," says Alex Rodriguez, Colón's former teammate and the toughest hitter Colón says he has ever faced. "In a game that sometimes misses a little flair, I think he's graced the game."

But even with an obvious joy for the game, his struggles, both personal and professional have occasionally forced him to question whether he would continue to play. At the beginning of this decade, Colón says, he was "mentally psyched out of baseball." In 2009, his brother-in-law was killed. In 2010, he blew out his shoulder again. In 2014, his mother died of breast cancer.

"I was going through some ... struggles with my baseball and then also some personal things," he said. "At the time, I really wasn't thinking about baseball at all, but, fortunately, I had some friends and family members who encouraged me to get back into it.

"I'll be the first to tell you that I'm surprised I'm still pitching."

THE BRAVES, AT least, are happy that he is. This is a pivotal year for Atlanta. The club opened a $622 million, taxpayer-funded stadium in SunTrust Park. Its manager's only previous major league experience was the final 124 games of last year's 68-win season. Colón is the team's No. 2 starter, a veteran presence behind Teheran.

"I see him huddle up with guys all the time," Snitker says. "Guys are tapping into him and what he has to offer. They're crazy if they have a resource like that and they don't use him."

Of course, even Colón's veteran presence comes with a child-like joy. His first interaction with future Braves teammate Dansby Swanson came last year in a late September game with playoff implications. Colón took a strong start into the seventh but was pulled after Swanson hit a two-out single. Walking back to the dugout, Colón stopped and stared at Swanson (with whom he'd never interacted).

When their eyes met, Colón threatened to maul the rookie. "He was jabbing at me like he was going to bum-rush me or something," Swanson says. "It was pretty funny because he was laughing while he did it."

During a session in spring training, Colón and reliever Arodys Vizcaino tossed to each other from 60 feet away. Colón is often seen with his 26-year-old countryman, talking baseball, offering advice and working on pitch movement and accuracy.

"I wish I could have his approach," Vizcaino said through an interpreter. "It seems like he takes it all in stride. He looks so relaxed and so confident."

At spring training, Colón received one of Vizcaino's throws and frowned -- the kind of look one gives after sniffing an unwashed stirrup. Vizcaino read Colón's face and grimaced. Colón received the next two throws and shook his head each time. Vizcaino sighed and frowned. Colón didn't approve of Vizcaino's execution, and Vizcaino was getting frustrated. Finally, after the fourth throw, Colón nodded and smiled.

Though his ERA this season is the worst of his career, Bartolo Colon says he would love nothing more than to continue playing. Pouya Dianat/Atlanta Braves

THIS IS ALSO a pivotal year for Colon. He has started the season poorly, giving up four or more runs in five of his nine starts and logging a 6.38 ERA, to date the worst of his career. But even still, he has notched two wins so far, which brings him that much closer to Marichal's record.

Marichal's 16-year MLB career was effective because of his ability to spot a fastball anywhere he wanted, including near a hitter's noggin. His wind-up featured a violent leg kick that sent his left cleat a foot above his head and then crashing into the dirt. His momentum would oftentimes drive him onto his knees. His windup was as much pitching as it was capoeira.

Colón has navigated the league in a different fashion -- one he explains to any young pitcher who asks. Since his renaissance in 2011, Colón stopped relying on high velocity. His delivery is simple and compact. He lifts his knee as high as his waist, he raises his arm above his ear and drives forward about three feet. He doesn't twist his hips, turn his shoulders or hide the ball. It's simple, delicate and fundamentally sound. He focuses on accuracy and a two-seamer that Rodriguez calls "as devastating a pitch as anyone can have."

For the average right-handed pitcher, the two-seam fastball features the same movement as a straight fastball until a couple of feet from the plate. Colón's two-seamer appears to be blasted off its plane by a hurricane. It starts at the hip of a left-handed hitter, and just as the hitter ducks out of the way, the pitch will dart down and into the strike zone. Siéntate.

When I ask him, back during spring training, if passing Marichal is something he thinks about, he gives a stock baseball answer.

"It would be a great honor," he says, "Right now, I can't focus on that. I've got to focus on my pitching matchups."

But, later in the conversation, after we discuss Altamira and mentoring young pitchers and the birth of his first son, Bartolo Jr., which he says is the best moment of his life (even better than the home run), Colón finally admits that chasing Marichal has great significance to him.

"Obviously, Marichal and Pedro [Martinez] are already in the Hall of Fame," he says. "I think I've got a little bit of a tough road ahead of me if I want to get in there, as well, but it's something that's important to me, something that I'll work for."

And then? If he has solidified his legacy as the winningest pitcher in his country's history, will he step away from the game and go back home to Altamira?

"No," he laughs. "I would love to keep playing. That's my plan right now. If God sees in his will to let me keep playing, I'm hoping another year. You know, next year, keep playing. Then that's it. Done."