Metro

Jose Reyes’ journey from the Dominican Republic to Mets star

HOUSE THAT JOSE BUILT: Dominican kids practice at Jose Reyes Field, a youth ballpark financed by the superstar on the once-rocky lot in Palmar Arriba where he used to play with a cardboard mitt.

HOUSE THAT JOSE BUILT: Dominican kids practice at Jose Reyes Field, a youth ballpark financed by the superstar on the once-rocky lot in Palmar Arriba where he used to play with a cardboard mitt. (Freddy Caputo (2))

(
)

Thirty years ago, under the blazing Dominican sun, a poor, young farmer, preparing to marry his childhood sweetheart, hacked at the stubborn plants around him and made an impassioned plea to God.

“There I was, pulling up [sugarcane] stumps, with my fingers all destroyed, and one day I just threw the machete into the sugarcane. I just threw it,” the man says. “And I said, ‘God, the day I marry Rosa, please give me a baseball-player son.”

Boy, did God deliver!

That farmer’s first child, a skinny, hyperactive boy who from the cradle was “afanoso,” or driven, is Jose Reyes.

The Mets superstar is one of the most exciting stories in the game right now. The 28-year- old is in the middle of a season for the ages, in which entering yesterday’s game his .352 batting average and 15 triples led the Major Leagues — he’s second in hits and stolen bases — and the statistics he’s accumulated in his first 1,000 games are being compared to those of the legendary Ty Cobb.

The MVP-type numbers come at the perfect time for Reyes, who’s bouncing back from two injury-marred seasons and who could command a long-term, $160 million contract when he becomes a free agent in October. But Reyes suffered a bit of a scare yesterday when he felt tightness in his left hamstring and exited the Mets’ 5-2 loss after two innings. He’ll undergo an MRI today.

MRI EXAM TODAY AFTER REYES EXITS WITH LEG TIGHTNESS

VACCARO: REYES TAKES BREATH AWAY, FOR BETTER AND WORSE

COLON STIFLES ‘SHORT’-HANDED METS IN RETURN

JETER SAYS REYES IS ‘GREATEST’

COMPLETE METS COVERAGE

For always-pessimistic Mets fans, the sizzling season thus far has the feel of a bravura encore; the beleaguered Wilpon family ownership may not be able — or willing — to keep the star whose exuberant style of play has given the team its brightest highlight over the past 10 years.

Unlike his nervous fan base, Reyes seems immune to the anxieties of an uncertain future. He continues to flash his wide grin and after every hit pump the “claw” in the air — a gesture he picked up from fellow Dominican shortstop Miguel Tejada.

“I want to be here. It’s too soon to say, so for now I just want to continue to play and continue to play good,” he told The Post Friday. “I love the fans. They’ve always been good to me, always supported me. I thank them for it.”

Reyes’ meteoric rise sur passes every expectation his humble dad, Jose Manuel Reyes, who hails from “a tiny house in the hills with a palm-leaf roof,” had for his son.

Jose Manuel eventually left his small farm to work in a factory making bathroom accessories, and later opened a bodega in front of the humble, one-bedroom home that he, wife Rosa, son Jose and daughter Miosotis shared in Palmar Arriba, a small suburb of Villa Gonzalez, an agricultural area of 30,000 residents.

Rail thin and lightning quick, young Reyes was a standout even as a pre-teen playing for his dad’s laid-back softball team.

“I brought him to play one day for the factory team, and a friend saw him in action and said to me, ‘If you want to get something out of this kid, then get him out of the countryside,’ ” says Jose Manuel, 54.

Dad was willing, but Jose, shy and in no hurry to leave home — his mother’s rice and beans is still his favorite dish — didn’t want to join the Felix de Leon League for kids his age. It was located 20 minutes away in Santiago, the second-largest city in the Dominican Republic.

“At first I’d just take him on Saturdays, but he was afraid and told me he’d never go to Santiago. Then, bit by bit, as he saw the other kids practicing and playing, he’d go join in. Then he started going alone, and finally he’d travel with them to towns farther away for tournaments,” says Jose Manuel.

From the start, young Jose kept “giving them surprises” with his talent, says the proud papi.

“He has always had a natural ability to get to third base on any decent hit, it’s just an instinctive thing for him,” he says.

In fact, the only hitter in history with more triples and stolen bases in his first 1,000 games is Hall-of-Famer Cobb.

But it’s more than stats for the fans, who adore Jose’s quirky tics — like wagging his tongue back and forth as he blurs around the bases, or doing his dugout dance after a home run.

For many years he did the popular “Professor Reyes” series, a Spanish lesson that played on the big screen at Shea Stadium and then Citi Field between innings.

As beloved as Reyes is in New York, it’s nothing compared to how he’s viewed in the Dominican Republic.

“I’ve known Jose since our childhood, since we were 5 years old, and he’s an excellent person. He’s a millionaire, but he’s the same guy. He comes here, he plays with us, he hangs out just like he always did,” says longtime buddy Héctor Alvarez.

The whole town “vibrates” when Reyes comes up to bat or gets on base, Alvarez says. Everyone’s glued to the TV set to catch the inevitable moment when the twitchy Reyes takes off for another steal.

“It’s with one voice that everyone screams, ‘Jose Reyes!’ ” says Alvarez. “He’s a real icon here.”

Nowadays, kids like Osiris Tatis, 11, who wants to be a shortstop like his idol, play el béisbol on a gleaming diamond carved from a rock-strewn lot.

It’s the House that Jose Reyes built.

Reyes, who inked a four-year, $23.25 million contract with the Mets in 2007, is a millionaire many times over.

But he shares liberally with family and friends and has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into converting the weed-choked empty lot where he used to play into the modest but state-of-the-art stadium.

He’s also helped create a league to foster young talent in his hometown and other cities around the Dominican Republic.

He pays the salaries of the young coaches who work at Jose Reyes Field, provides exercise machines, bats, balls, gloves and other equipment, and has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the creation of a local league that fosters new talent in Santiago and around the country.

“This field is a blessing for us,” says Osiris, taking a break Thursday from a late-night game. “When Jose comes, he plays with us. He brings us equipment and things we need from the United States.”

When Reyes was a boy, however, none of that existed.

He and his friends scrounged around to find old milk cartons or other bits of cardboard to fashion baseball mitts. They played on whatever semi-clear surface they could find. Bats and balls were scarce.

But Reyes never let the poverty around him get him down, says his mother, Rosa, who will be in New York this week to visit her son.

“He liked to swim in the nearby river, play in the mango fields, ride his bike. He was always very active,” says Rosa, from inside the two-story home that her son had built for her when he was 16 and got a $22,000 signing bonus from the Mets.

He had it constructed it atop the one-bedroom home where he grew up — about 200 yards from the renovated Jose Reyes Field.

Reyes was called up to the majors in June 2003, the day before his 20th birthday.

In 2007, he and his future wife, Katherine, 29 — a friend in 2003 set him up on a date with the Dominican knockout in New York — moved from their two-bedroom apartment in Bayside, Queens.

The couple took daughters Katherine, 6, and Ashley, 5 — they’ve since added Joselyn, 2 — to Manhasset, LI, to the six-bedroom, 4½-bathroom colonial mansion Reyes bought for $3.25 million.

He kept the purchase a secret from his parents until they arrived for the baseball season. When he drove them in from the airport and pulled his car into the driveway, Rosa began to cry, and Jose Manuel was speechless.

In 2008 Reyes married his longtime girlfriend in a no-frills ceremony at City Hall. For his honeymoon, he returned the next night to Shea Stadium to knock out a home run, two doubles and a single in a game the Mets eventually lost. Torn hamstrings and a hyperactive thyroid hobbled Reyes during parts of 2009 and 2010, but he’s been back in form this season.

Reyes, who hasn’t cut his dreadlocks since 2008, is open about his desire to finish his career in the city he loves — but he’s also refused to negotiate a new contract with the Mets until the end of the season, saying it’s a distraction.

“He loves New York, the diversity, the fans who always treat him great, and the energy of the city — he’s a small-town guy but that energy feeds him,” says his agent, Chris Lieble, who is also godfather to Reyes’ two oldest daughters.

Reyes isn’t anticipating having to pull his children out of their schools or give up his favorite Manhattan hangouts, like STK in the Meatpacking District or Tao, Lieble says.

“He’s said all along that he just wants to help the Mets win,” the agent says. “He’d also love to win the World Series — he’s always said that’s his Number 1 goal.”

Reyes, playing right now at the peak of his ability, brims with confidence at the plate.

“I think I’m going to get on base every time. This is the best I’ve felt in years,” he says.

Additional reporting by Kevin Kernan

gotis@nypost.com