Heroes helping Gurriel on Jays dream journey
He is the princeling of Cuban baseball.
Youngest son of a living legend — spare (No. 2) to the heir and the spare (No. 1) spawned by Lourdes Gurriel, celebrated slugger and long-time manager of the national team.
But the only one from among mis tres hijos who carries the name Lourdes Gurriel Jr. Branded for baseball from birth. “Of course I was,’’ the long and lanky hotshot Jays prospect says with an easy grin, even when acknowledging the fishbowl existence of being Gurriel royalty in a baseball-crazy country. “Because my dad and my two older brothers had already made their path, their career, and been successful.
“It happened a lot where I was not treated as Lourdes Gurriel — I was the son of, the brother of. So I had to live with that pressure.’’
Baseball was bred in the bone, however, and he never contemplated a different future, which would have been a waste of pedigree. “Since I’m 5, the only thing I saw and I did was baseball,” he says through an interpreter. “As soon as I had a chance to go to a baseball field and hit a ball, that was the only thing that I had in mind. That has never changed.”
Still son of. Still brother of. But an unpolished gem in the Toronto organization, in the estimation of a front office that made a seven-year, $22-million (including $3-million signing bonus) investment in the spindly 23-year-old, signing him to all that do-re-me as a
“I’ve learned that you can’t run without walking first.” LOURDES GURRIEL BLUE JAYS PROSPECT TICKETED TO START IN THE MINORS
minor-league free agent. At a showcase in Panama, essentially a freelance audition, scouts from every major-league baseball club turned up to assess the kid (though hardly a kid, as baseball development goes).
Toronto won the lottery when Gurriel picked the Jays in November over a similar offer from the Cardinals.
Astutely, the young man waited until his 23rd birthday before inking, when he was no longer subject to international signing guidelines and could amplify his demands.
All that happened scarcely a few months after big bro Yulieski, widely considered this era’s best Cuban ballplayer, made his MLB debut as a third baseman with the Houston Astros. (He would go on hit .262 with three home runs and seven doubles in 130 at-bats with the Astros.) “When we knew that we were going to go play in the States, playing together was just a plus,” says Gurriel. “If it happened, it happened. But we’re different people, different players. For us, it was more thinking about what would be best for each of us and not the fact of maybe playing together.”
So, a brace of Gurriels clandestinely transitioning away from their Communist homeland after so many years of apparent family contentment and — communism be damned — enjoying a more upscale lifestyle than most economically strapped Cubans under the Castro regime.
This Gurriel shakes his head and smiles apologetically. “No, no, no.” That is, he won’t even answer a benign question about whether he’d ever met Fidel, back in the day. “No politics.’’
Which means, no discussion of Cuba in any context other than baseball. Because it appears Gurriel was chewed out, warned off, after revealing some of the details of his Cuba-to-Florida defection with Yulieski in a recent far-ranging interview with John Lott of The Athletic, including that the brothers had paid a seven-figure sum to human traffickers who arranged their escape.
Lourdes Jr. was just 16 when he started playing for his country’s national team — the squad which, a generation earlier in 1992, captured Olympic gold, with papa hitting .400 and leading the way.
But Lourdes the Younger will probably never represent Cuba internationally again, just as he hasn’t been wearing the colours at the World Baseball Classic, where a star-depleted team has advanced to the second round. Fidel Castro may be dead, finally, but his Cuba still won’t allow defectors to represent the island state which — in the pre-Castro era — sent scores of native-born talent to the majors.
The aspiring big-league shortstop put Cuba firmly behind him when he and Yulieski — nine years his senior — defected in February 2016, during the Caribbean World Series in the Dominican Republic, crossing illegally into Haiti. The siblings — just like their father, who’d been trusted by the Castro regime to take the national club around the world and then bring everybody back — had been Castro patriots, at least to the extent of not attempting flight. Eldest brother Yunieski logged 16 seasons in the top-tier National Series with no apparent interest in chasing U.S. sanctuary. Yulieski had put in 15 seasons in the Serie Nacional and the national team.
But the younger brothers had grown impatient with the possibility of being allowed to immigrate to the States as the diplomatic cold war between Washington and Havana began to thaw in 2015, and President Barack Obama made a historic return to the island. Yulieski especially was running out of career time.
Everybody wants to leave Cuba, Gurriel has said, and he doesn’t just mean ballplayers. Had to take the plunge.
Gathered to Toronto’s bosom, Gurriel — who hit .344 with the Industriales in ’15 — arrived here with high big-league hopes, though he’s expected to start the season either in Class-A Dunedin or Double-A, GM Ross Atkins told the Star Saturday. Atkins is enthusiastic, outlining why the Jays were so dogged in their pursuit: “Upbringing, family, baseball experience, all of them combined. But what we learned about him was his character, perseverance. Our best guess, best prediction, of how he would deal with the transition . . . was extremely encouraging. And there were obviously things about his talent and ability that projected very well.’’
Gurriel has played the outfield and infield, but is a shortstop at heart. Thus he was keenly eager to meet a professional hero: Troy Tulowitzki. “I really liked the Blue Jays even before I signed, but the guy I really wanted to meet was Tulowitzki. That was really exciting for me. I was following him even when he was in Colorado.’’
There was a minor setback out of the gate when Gurriel tweaked a hamstring in his spring training debut. Last week, in his first at-bat against the Orioles, he crushed the first pitch he saw, a hanging breaking ball. “Grinning ear to ear,” observed manager John Gibbons following the home run trot. He’s 2-for-6, the other hit a double.
In the clubhouse, Gurriel’s stall is next to Kendrys Morales, the veteran DH who made 11 attempts at fleeing Cuba before successfully crossing the Florida Straits on a crowded raft. Gurriel was just 8 years old when he first met Morales.
“From the first day I got here, he’s been very kind. Even before that, he texted me when he found out I’d signed with Toronto. He and (Ezequiel) Carrera, who has the locker on my right, have been helping me a lot, teaching me stuff, showing me how it works here. I’m grateful and lucky to have those guys around me.”
Of course he misses Yulieski. “As soon as the game’s done, we always call each other and text each other, to see how the other guy did. We’ve always been very close.”
He rubs a hand through fashionably hip-hop hair, flashes another smile.
“I’ve always dreamed to be in the big leagues. When I come here, every day my mindset is, I’m going to be in the big leagues tomorrow. Obviously I’ve learned that you can’t run without walking first. I know it’s not just throw the ball, catch the ball, hit the ball. But I also know what I need to get to the bigs. And when I do get there, I know I’ll be ready.”
Interview over, Gurriel says, in English: “Thank you.”