Finding relief on the field
Baseball shares a stadium with a recovery centre where the games, and help, are free
By first pitch, the parking lot outside Evaristo “Varo” Roldan Stadium was jammed. Inside, the Criollos de Caguas, the defending Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League and Caribbean Series champions, were seeking their third straight win against the Gigantes de Carolina. It was a Monday afternoon earlier this month, but it didn’t feel like one. Music pulsated. Beer vendors sold cans of Medalla Light out of paint buckets. Many of the blue seats were empty, but the ballpark was alive.
Some weren’t entering the stadium for entertainment, though, instead seeking the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center, located behind home plate and under the part-public address announcer, part-DJ entertaining the crowd from the concourse. For many Puerto Ricans, lives remain in disarray four months after Hurricane Maria crushed the island.
The two realms, separated by concrete and two round-the-clock security guards, encapsulate Puerto Rico as it faces a daunting recovery. Still reeling from one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, evidence of Maria’s wrath was inescapable. Utility poles were toppled, trees knocked down and traffic lights out. Blue tarp roofs dotted neighbourhoods and swaths of homes were without power. The hum from generators joined the coqui chirps to remix the island’s nighttime soundtrack.
But Puerto Ricans have had baseball this month. They’ve had the opportunity, almost every day, for their minds to go elsewhere, away from their frustration and hardships, for three or so hours. They’re striving to make life normal again, and for some on the island, life is normal when there’s baseball.
“The rehabilitation of a country in a situation like this isn’t just fixing homes and buildings,” Héctor Rivera Cruz, the president of the 80-yearold winter league, said in Spanish. “It’s also spiritual and emotional.”
Edwin Ramos Rodríguez made the half-hour drive to the game at Varo Roldan Stadium on that Monday earlier this month because he had the afternoon off and, well, why not? The janitor had worked a half-day at an elementary school in neighbouring Caguas without power. He didn’t have electricity at his home 40 minutes away in Cidra either. A few hours at the ballpark was therapeutic — and the game, like every other regular-season game in Puerto Rico this unusual winter season, was free.
“Tomorrow, I’ll get out at 4 p.m. because classes start,” he said. “The teachers and students will have a half-day until the power comes back, but it’ll be full days for me.”
Ramos Rodríguez, a bespectacled baseball fanatic in his early 50s, leaned over a railing as he rattled off winter league factoids. The scoreboard beyond the centre field wall was still standing but the storm left it inoperable. The shades above the stands, there to protect spectators from the relentless sun, were stripped. The roof was damaged. But the ballpark survived the storm relatively unscathed for the several hundred people in attendance.
“This is a chance to see the next Carlos Correa or Francisco Lindor,” Abimail Pascual, a former PA announcer for the Criollos, said in the stands during the first inning. “We have to come see them because we know it gets difficult for them to play here the higher they rise as pros. So, as a fan, I come to watch them play.”
Baseball was an afterthought in Maria’s wake, as millions of Puerto Ricans hunted for basic necessities and waited in eight-hour lines for gas to fuel their generators while another couple hundred thousand residents fled to the mainland U.S. The winter league season, which normally begins in November, was suspended a couple weeks after the hurricane made landfall. Players whose rights were held by the league’s teams were permitted to sign with clubs in other winter leagues. A decade after financial troubles forced the winter league to shut down for a year, Maria’s fallout was threatening another season.
But league officials were determined to salvage it. Cruz Rivera believed suspending the campaign — and, consequently, not fielding a team to defend Puerto Rico’s first Caribbean Series title since 2000 against clubs from Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic — would have hurt the next crop of Puerto Rican talent, players who depend on the league as a development tool. It also would have eliminated a rallying diversion when people could use one most.
“I call this season ‘The Miracle,’ ” Criollos Manager Luis Matos, a former major-leaguer, said in Spanish.
The first step was ensuring there was enough money. In previous years, municipalities bankrolled most of their franchises’ expenses, but Rivera Cruz emphasized that even with fewer sponsorships, the league assumed the entire burden this year. After negotiations with the Players Association of Puerto Rico, the league settled on a $500,000 player pot for four teams instead of the usual five — financial constraints forced the Tiburones de Aguadilla to merge with the Indios de Mayagüez. That gave each club $125,000 to construct rosters, most of which are filled with minor-leaguers paid measly salaries during the regular season.
Officials eventually created an 18game schedule. A short playoff will determine Puerto Rico’s representative in the Caribbean Series next month in Mexico. To spur interest, games are broadcast on public television, and fans don’t pay for tickets until the championship series.
“We’re lucky,” Indios manager and former major-leaguer José Valentín said in Spanish. “We’re blessed that we have a season this year.”
The game’s din could be heard faintly in the FEMA Disaster Recov- ery Center down the hall from the Criollos’ clubhouse. The room had thinned out from the morning rush, but some people remained, patiently waiting for help in folding chairs after registering at the folding table in front. The only fans permitted entry were those who needed the elevator to access the stands. Two guards provided security.
“I don’t mind,” said Max Torres, the centre’s manager. “We just try to work together. As long as the music isn’t too loud.”
Abaseball game and a disaster relief centre were sharing the same building because of a ballpark shortage. Two of the four franchises’ stadiums were deemed playable after the hurricane: Isidoro García Stadium in Mayaguez, a city on the west coast, and Hiram Bithorn Stadium, home of the Cangrejeros de Santurce in the capital of San Juan, which is slated to host a two-game series between the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins in April.
Evaristo “Varo” Roldan Stadium — a 2,500-seat stadium that hosts amateur summer league games located a half-hour south of San Juan — was designated as the Criollos’ home field. The Gigantes were left displaced. Further hampering the situation, only Isidoro García Stadium has functioning lights. The circumstances forced officials to schedule most games in the early afternoon, which has suppressed attendance for weekday games and forced the double booking earlier this month.
Torres said the majority of people arrive at the centre seeking help with paperwork. Their problems usually stem from not having the documents proving they owned their home when the hurricane hit. Proof is required to qualify for FEMA assistance.
“A lot of times they don’t have access to faxes or telephone lines because power is down,” Torres said. “So what we do is open these centres to give people a face-to-face setup so they can talk to somebody who can tell them what’s happening with their case. What’s the situation? Which documents do you need? If they bring the documents, we’ll fax them and explain the options they have.”
The centre was opened Nov. 12, nearly two months after Maria swept through, and will remain open on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. indefinitely. The staff spends the next three days at the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center in Canovanas, a municipality 40 minutes to the north. Both centres are closed on Sundays.
So, Torres and his staff weren’t at Evaristo “Varo” Roldan Stadium, when it hosted a Sunday doubleheader. They returned as the sun rose the next day, helping people get back on their feet as others descended in search of a hint of the normalcy.
It was temporary. After the Criollos slugged their way to an 8-7 victory that afternoon, fans filed into the parking lot and drove back to their realities. The escape was over.