Why the Puerto Rico Series was more than beautiful baseball

Francisco Lindor lit up Puerto Rico with a dramatic home run on Tuesday.

Then the island went dark on Wednesday.

A reminder that despite all the goodwill and work by Major League Baseball, the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins during three busy and productive days in Puerto Rico, folks here are hanging on by a brittle electrical thread.

Not even the spirit of Roberto Clemente was spared indignities. The power went out around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday all across the island as MLB and the Clemente family were unveiling a memorial marker in honor of the late Hall of Famer. It was placed at the shoreline near where Roberto’s plane crashed on Dec. 31, 1972.

The office of the mayor of San Juan and MLB made sure that Game 2 of the Puerto Rico Series went on as scheduled. Using backup generators acquired specifically for this contingency, they powered the Hiram Bithorn Stadium lights until electricity was restored to the surrounding area late afternoon Wednesday.

The city’s foresight paid huge dividends on the field. In the first game, Lindor’s fifth inning home run had jump-started the crowd as well as the Indians’ offense. Cleveland went on to earn a 6-1 victory. In the second game, Twins starter José Berríos threw seven shutout innings in what became a marathon pitchers’ duel. Minnesota eventually won the game 2-1 as Eddie Rosario crossed home plate in the 16th inning, splitting the series and sending everyone home happy.

But to drive home the message that this trip was more than just fun and games, MLB, the Players Association and the teams invested time and significant money, making the Puerto Rico Series a giant exclamation point on baseball’s commitment to the island.

Since María struck on Sept. 20, MLB, the MLBPA and the 30 teams have given approximately $12 million toward hurricane relief aid, said John Blundell, MLB vice president of communication.

Between MLB and the municipality of San Juan, headed by Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, another couple million dollars were spent on repairing Hiram Bithorn Stadium — named after the first Puerto Rican to play in the major leagues. More than $800,000 alone went to replacing the lights.

“It took a giant effort to get this ballpark ready,” said Carlos Baerga, the former All-Star second baseman for the Indians who is now the general manager of the Indios de Mayaguez.

“Remember that María devasted the island,” added Baerga, who was part of Puerto Rico Series organizing committee. “Damaged the lights. The clubhouse. The batting cages went flying off. The first time we walked into the ballpark, we said, ‘Wow, will we ever play here again?’

“The work that MLB put in with the mayor of San Juan to make this possible was beyond incredible.”

They say charity begins at home. Led by players from Puerto Rico, MLB, MLBPA and both teams gave back in spades during their three-day stay on the island.

Stars Shine On the Field

On the field, the players put on a great show — starting with Lindor. The vibrant all-star shortstop with the huge smile was playing in Puerto Rico for the first time since he moved away to Florida as a 12-year-old. His home run in the fifth during Tuesday’s game was the kind of display that helps explain why he’s so beloved by boricuas. A shot heard across the Caribbean, it ignited an impromptu party inside the ballpark and led to chants of “Lindor, Lindor, Lindor.”

For Blundell, who has seen each one of the 49 MLB games played in Puerto Rico since the first in 2001, it was a moment like no other.

“That’s the best moment of all,” Blundell said. “I’ve seen Javier Vázquez pitch. José Lind and Carlos Beltrán play here. But this was cool.”

“My dream was always to play here,” Lindor said. “But what happened tonight was really special because I’ll never forget it. I never thought that it would feel this good.”

On Wednesday, the 23-year-old Berríos showed why he is one of the game’s emerging stars. After giving up three hits in the first 1.2 innings, he settled down and retired the next 16 batters before leaving the game. In four starts this season, Berrios has struck out 29 in 27.2 innings and issued only one walk.

“This was a great night for me,” Berríos said. “So very special. Since the moment I stepped out of the dugout onto the field to warm up, I felt the passion and energy inside the stadium. I was a little excited. When I started the game, my emotions were running high. But I had a job to do. I had a job to do in front of my family and friends and all those from Puerto Rico present. And I did it.”

“It was marvelous,” he continued. “All that energy, all that support that came from all over the island, from friends and family, was wonderful. It was a great experience that will last for the rest of our careers.”

A suitable end — finally

Wednesday’s game remained scoreless through 13 innings. Dominican Edwin Encarnación, who lived in Puerto Rico for five years, put the Indians ahead with a solo home run in the top of the 14th. His countryman Miguel Sanó tied it in the bottom half with another blast.

Twins left fielder Rosario finally ended what his countryman Berríos started. He opened the bottom of the 16th with a single and advanced to third on a groundball that should have been a double play but was booted for an error. After an intentional walk to load the bases, Ryan LaMarre drove Rosario home with a walk-off single, ending the longest MLB game ever in Puerto Rico after five hours and 13 minutes.

Berríos, who hadn’t left the dugout or changed out of his uniform, ran back out to the field, jumping for joy like a little kid with Rosario.

“It was an unforgettable experience,” Rosario said. “I’ll always remember it for the rest of my life and I think that it will be one of the best moments in my career. I’m happy that my family could see me play in the major leagues. It really is going to be unforgettable. I’m very happy, full of so many emotions that I can’t quite describe.”

And yet it came against the backdrop of a country still in turmoil.

BEYOND THE LIGHTS

The electrical outages still plaguing the island’s power grid were front and center during the week’s most emotional moments.

The ceremony for Clemente, and the island as a whole, were knocked out by, of all things, an electrical subcontractor operating an excavator too close to a high-voltage line in a rural area.

As a result, nearly 1.5 million customers lost power in the second major outage of the past seven days. Stoplights turned black. Schools, shopping centers and businesses closed. According to The New York Times, the fire department said a generator at a Chili’s restaurant exploded and the restaurant was consumed by fire.

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority thought it could take up to 36 hours to restore electricity to all affected customers, but after overnight emergency repairs, about 1.1 million had regained power — until the grid collapsed again around 8:40 a.m. Thursday morning in parts of San Juan.

Many on the island scrambled to watch or listen to the games as they were being broadcast to the rest of the world on ESPN, but not to them. Those with home generators tried rigging up homemade antennas to catch the over-the-air broadcast on WAPA-TV.

As unfortunate as the timing was, there was perhaps some value in showing what the island still experiences seven months after Hurricane María made landfall here.

“We’re giving people a flavor of Puerto Rico,” Santos “Sandy” Alomar Jr., the Indians’ first base coach, said on the field before the game. “Maybe the rest of the country will now understand what we go through down here.”

As is his nature, Alomar Jr. was just being honest. After María pummeled the island, MLB went forward with the Puerto Rico Series, in part because it was forced to cancel a 2016 series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Miami Marlins due to the Zika scare. After so much criticism of the federal response to the hurricane, merely showing up sends a powerful message.

The only missing detail at the game was Bithorn’s statue, which used to stand in front of the stadium and showed the right-handed pitcher beginning his trademark high-kick delivery. Shattered to pieces by María, it remains in storage inside the stadium, awaiting a generous benefactor.

More than béisbol

Berríos took a half-dozen teammates — including All-Star first baseman Joe Mauer, as well as Twins mascot T.C. Bear — to the San Jorge Children’s Hospital on Monday. They spent several hours handing out autographed jerseys and baseballs while posing for photographs with patients in the cancer ward and in intensive care.

“This is one of the things that I wanted to do,” Mauer told reporters. “Coming down here and seeing the excitement from everybody, you want to give something back. I wanted to come here and hopefully put a smile on a couple kids’ faces.”

On Tuesday, the Twins organized a luncheon for 50 kids. Team employees spent the afternoon cleaning, painting and restoring at Hogar Forjadores de Esperanza, which provides housing for displaced and abused women and children. Twins employees went to Toa Baja, one of the hardest-hit areas, on Wednesday to help in projects aimed at restoring water and power and repairing structures.

In all, the Twins flew nearly 100 people to Puerto Rico.

The Indians organized similar events and fulfilled an initiative they launched last fall when the players voted to allocate one full playoff share — roughly $37,000 — to aid relief efforts on the island.

On Monday, Lindor returned to his hometown of Caguas and to his former elementary school in neighboring Gurabo to lead a clinic for 250 students as part of MLB’s “Players Going Home” program. He left behind checks to fund school programs and repair athletic fields.

On a bigger scale, MLB donated $350,000 to Habitat for Humanity for two mobile response units — a cargo van and truck — outfitted and stocked with supplies to support home construction and repairs across the island. MLB also gave more than 2,000 Little League players new uniforms and apparel as part of a total donation of $1 million this week.

MLBPA and The Players Trust donated another $200,000 to Feeding America, which has been running a food bank on the island since Hurricane María.

You couldn’t ask for a better script. Lindor had his moment on the field, as did Berríos and Rosario, while players and MLB staff demonstrated that Puerto Rico is still on the minds of those on the mainland, inside and outside Estadio Hiram Bithorn.

If there’s a moral to this week, it’s that power outages be damned — nothing will deprive Puerto Ricans from their baseball birthright.

Featured Image: Jean Fruth / La Vida Baseball

Inset Images: Jean Fruth / La Vida Baseball