Cutout connects with family of school shooting victim
OAKLAND >> Jesús Luzardo knew Joaquin “Guac” Oliver was near. Not just in spirit, but as one of the thousands of cardboard cutouts in the Oakland Coliseum seats.
The A’s pitcher found out that Guac was seated in the lower bowl of the ballpark, wearing A’s colors.
Section 104, row 26, seat 4.
Once he found Guac, Luzardo snapped a picture of himself with the cutout and sent it to Joaquin’s father in Miami.
Manuel Oliver replied via Twitter: “Thanks to @Athletics Pitcher Jesus Luzardo @Baby_Jesus9 for showing respect to Joaquin ”Guac” Oliver at the Oakland Coliseum. Two Venezuelans ready to strike out a few. Viva Guac! And the other 40k/year victims from Gun Violence.”
“Blessed to have met your son!” Luzardo tweeted back.
Joaquin Oliver was 17 when he and 16 other people were gunned down at a school in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2018. It was Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Luzardo’s alma mater.
In the tragedy’s wake, Oliver’s father, Manuel and mother, Patricia, started a movement called Change the Ref to raise awareness for gun violence. Manuel is an artist, and the Oliver family is part of Florida’s rich artistic culture. Coming up with creative ways to keep their message alive in a way that could represent their son came naturally. They could think of no better way to keep Joaquin’s memory alive than through the one thing he loved most: sports.
The Change the Ref movement has at least 14 “Guac” cardboard cutouts placed throughout various Major League Baseball stadiums across the country, including Oracle Park in San Francisco, Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, SunTrust Park in Atlanta, T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Dodger Stadium and the Oakland Coliseum.
Forcing a captive audience starving for live sports to see Joaquin sitting there — present in cardboard form, but not in breathing life — seemed a good way to remind Americans of the endemic that took Joaquin and so many others away.
“Those two are very American traditions,” Manuel said. “Baseball and gun violence.”
Sports wasn’t much a part of the Oliver family culture until Joaquin started to fall in love with it. He grew fond of Muhammed Ali — for his elusive shuffle and his legacy as a social justice leader. He loved to watch fellow Venezuelan Johan Santana hurl that circle changeup. As an athlete himself, baseball was his first love, but he had an undeniable passion for basketball. The Miami Heat was his religion, Dwyane Wade his idol.
Joaquin was buried in Wade’s No. 3 jersey. Wade brought Joaquin back to the hardwood, wearing shoes etched with his name near the soles.
Luzardo met Joaquin not in the hallways of their alma mater, nor on a baseball diamond. They met on a basketball court.
Luzardo remembers it well. One November evening in 2018, the two were on opposite sides of a pickup 5-on-5 basketball game at Pine Trails Park, a local gathering spot in Parland. Pickup games were a custom at that park among MSD High students and alumni.
“He was competitive and fun,” Luzardo said recently. “Everyone loved him.”
Luzardo didn’t know Oliver well, but he knew everyone knew Oliver. The kid they called “Guac” was beloved at MSD.
Luzardo also remembers the horror three months later, remembers it well. He had been golfing, not far from the school. Scheduled
to throw a bullpen session with some of the MSD HIgh baseball players, he was running late.
He was a mile away when he got a text telling him to stay away.
“I think about how, if I was there five minutes earlier, I could have been running through the baseball field, running away from the shots,” Luzardo said. “I think about that sometimes.”
That thought may haunt Luzardo, but more than anything it instills a sense of responsibility in the young pitcher. Only 22, he understands the influence he can carry not only on the mound as one of the organization’s brightest stars, but in how he picks and chooses messages to amplify.
He spoke out about Jacob Blake’s shooting at the hands of police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He spoke out this week when the A’s played a doubleheader in Seattle with the Air Quality Index well above 200. He knows the platform he’s been given, and knows he can amplify a cause that not only intersects with his own life, but remains an injustice he couldn’t ignore.
Luzardo doesn’t consider himself political. He doesn’t consider gun violence a political cause. Shedding light on causes that strive to mitigate and eliminate senseless gun violence just seems logical.
“I don’t really care what side anyone’s on,” Luzardo said. “I just think that when a 14-year-old is scared to go to school, that’s when you have to draw a line.”
Keeping Joaquin’s name alive is one way the Oliver family hopes to remind voters about that line. Election day is fast approaching.
“We could spend hours writing articles, speaking to politicians and going to rallies and stuff,” Manuel said. “We do all that. But how can we be more effective? The best way to be effective is to be unpredictable. Out of the box, creative.”
The campaign’s ingenuity comes with a secondary impact. Seating Joaquin in ballparks around the country lets Manuel stay connected to a tradition that bonded them.
In the two years before Joaquin’s death, the father and son made it a goal to travel to as many ballparks as possible. They made it to Fenway Park, Yankee
Stadium. They’d hand each one a grade; the Fenway Park hot dog was Joaquin’s favorite, Manuel preferred the dogs at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Yankee Stadium felt more like Disneyland, they’d joke, with voices welcoming them every step of the way to their seats. Old Fenway had nothing like that.
Joaquin brought his glove to every game, just in case a foul ball came sailing their way.
“I guess I’m blessed because I had the opportunity to be with Joaquin to many games,” Manuel said. “I know the feeling of having Joaquin sitting next to me eating popcorn or chicken wings with soda, watching nine innings in Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium.
“I wish that any father that is able to read this, pictures himself in the situation where you do that, you like that, and suddenly you won’t be able to do it anymore. I had no one telling me that. I never heard anyone with this story. So I could maybe do something before. But whoever is reading this has no excuse to do something about it. Because I’m warning you that it could happen.”
Manuel says he has received more public support and recognition from the cardboard cutout movement than any other he’s participated in since the shooting. Someday sports fans will be allowed to return to the ballpark, to take their seat and take in a game. Joaquin can only do it as he does now, as cardboard cutout and a grim reminder of what should not be.