By gkiley123

I was heading west toward the Butterfly House when the call came.

“Carlos is on the way but they’re having trouble finding it,” said Marisa Diaz of Tsunami Waves, who also was on her way to the West County landmark destination.

This wasn’t good.

First, Carlos’ uncle, Winston, does a lot of the driving for the family and has become familiar with the highways in and around St. Louis County. The Butterfly House, a West County landmark, isn’t that difficult to spot. What could have gone wrong?

But the possibility they had passed by the Faust Park institution wasn’t my biggest concern. Carlos was early.

That was not supposed to happen. Carlos is notorious for — how should we put this — keeping his own schedule. We had half-planned that he would not be on time this morning. Now he might be 45 minutes early? Uh oh. The last thing we wanted was for him to be first to arrive, see that no one was there and head back home.

Butterfly House had agreed to open during its off hours to allow Cardinals Magazine to do a photo shoot with Carlos for the cover of an upcoming issue. The Cardinals Insider TV show was sending a crew as well for a segment that will air Sunday, July 10 (KSDK, Channel 5, in St. Louis). We had worked on the logistics of the shoot for a couple of weeks and while Carlos had been cooperative, if this one failed, who knows when we would have a chance to schedule again.

There was no need to worry.

When I pulled in to the parking lot no more than 15 minutes after talking with Diaz, Carlos, his wife, Paloma, and uncle Winston had already been given a tour of the place and were patiently waiting for the lights and cameras to be set up. Apparently, they had not been very lost and, clearly, were in no hurry to leave.

Carlos proved as pleasant and as accommodating as anyone could be for the photo shoot. Though the inside of the Butterfly House gets quite humid and hot, he did not issue the first gripe, or anything close to it. He posed in several different spots for nearly an hour, including once with Paloma, displaying his childlike smile and a demeanor so calm that even the butterflies seemed to take a liking to him.

Brian Mejia, his agent, had told me that what you see is what you get with Carlos and I was beginning to understand. He was as comfortable and as happy-go-lucky away from Busch Stadium as he is splashing water in the Cardinals’ dugout after a teammate hits a home run. He was a pleasure for all to deal with.

When the staffers from the Butterfly House asked him to pose with them for photos, Carlos did so and then returned the request and asked if he could take a selfie with them (which he posted on his Instagram account). He also wondered when he might be able to return and bring his two young sons, Kenny and Kevin, who had started pre-school that morning and were unable to make the visit.

As you can learn in our cover story on Carlos in the new issue of Cardinals Magazine he is often out and about the St. Louis area these days. Usually, he’s visiting a place with kids for an appearance on behalf of his Tsunami Waves Foundation. Already in his fourth season in St. Louis, Martinez has become more than one of the most valuable Cardinals. He has become a person who is making a difference in the community, too.

Someone who is learning his way around life as well as baseball.

Stan McNeal is senior staff writer for Cardinals Magazine.