Hurricane’s wrath hits close to home

Inside the Blue Jays clubhouse at the Rogers Centre on Friday afternoon, players were preparing for the series opener against the Tigers. Every television, usually tuned in to out-of-town MLB games, was set on CNN with constant updates on the progress of, and the destruction wrought by, hurricane Irma as it headed towards Florida, following its earlier path of destruction through the Caribbean.

The players were worried, but to that point had been spared any news that would have forced them to leave the club to take care of business. Many players on the expanded roster either grew up in the Dominican Republic, Cuba or Puerto Rico, or else had homes in Florida, many close to the club’s Dunedin spring-training site.

Manager John Gibbons, whose San Antonio home had escaped the wrath of hurricane Harvey, revealed in his office that injured players Russ Martin and Devon Travis were en route to Toronto from Tampa to continue their injury rehab programs, seeking shelter from the storm. Others such as outfielder Darrell Ceciliani and pitcher Cesar Valdez were headed to their homes, not in any major-league plans for the remainder of the Jays’ unnatural disaster of a season.

Coach Luis Rivera said he had been monitoring his family back home in Puerto Rico, but with Irma veering about 32 kilometres north of the island, the Jays third-base coach explained it was just high levels of wind and rain. His loved ones were safe. He had been ready to leave the team if his help had been required.

Newcomer Carlos Ramirez had been surprisingly promoted to the major leagues for a September stint at the end of Triple-A Buffalo’s season. He suggested that if that hadn’t happened he would have been home in his native Dominican in harm’s way. But sitting in the dugout with countryman Luis Santos, both were relieved that the hurricane had largely spared their part of the island nation.

As for Jays closer Roberto Osuna, his parents live about 90 minutes north of the epicentre of the 8.1magnitude earthquake that struck in the south of Mexico. They felt it and subsequent aftershocks. As such, Osuna had made arrangements for his family to fly north to join him in the GTA. I now keep scanning the sky for a plague of locusts.

Like many other major leaguers, Jose Bautista has two horses in this race. He is a native of the Dominican Republic, born in 1980 two months after Category 5 hurricane Allen crushed the island. Bautista also owns a home in Florida.

Through his 10 years with the Jays, Bautista has often acted as the conscience of the franchise, making sure the front office does the right thing and looking out for the well-being of his younger teammates. On this dangerous day as Bautista concluded batting practice, he had complimentary things to say about the concern the Jays have demonstrated, letting players know the team was ready to help.

“It’s just about what we can control to help,” GM Ross Atkins said. “Just try to take the lead on it and make sure that we’re doing what we can to make sure that we’re as prepared as we can be, to support anyone that might be in need.”

The Jays chose to make quick decisions regarding their springtraining site in Dunedin, that is on the west coast of Florida and will feel strong winds and rain, plus the club’s complex in the Dominican Republic, that is the site of their summer team plus an important recruiting centre for the prospects from that country.

“We made our complex available in Dunedin and also in the Dominican Republic, make sure we had nonperishable items: water, gasoline, anything that we could think to be slightly proactive to be helpful for people in need, after the fact,” Atkins said, crediting the quick work of employees Charlie Wilson and Blake Bentley.

“We don’t know what those numbers could potentially be, but we’ve put together things that we thought would be helpful in the event, whether it’s one person in need or 15 people in need. We just try to be human about it, make sure that we’re using empathy. We can’t do everything, but if there’s something we can do to help we certainly want to.”

People compare Irma to 1992 hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm that is now dwarfed by Irma. Atkins grew up in Miami and remembers, at 19 years old, being terrified by Andrew as the storm shook his townhouse the day before heading back to college. The Indians, from which both Atkins and Jays president Mark Shapiro came, remember the force of Andrew. The franchise was building a new spring complex in Homestead, some 50 km south of Miami. It was completely destroyed. They moved temporarily to Winter Haven and then out to Arizona.

On a personal note, I also have memories of Andrew from my days working for the Expos, who were in Atlanta on Aug. 27, 1992 for the final of a three-game series against the Braves. The storm had done most of its damage and was in its final stages. A Braves executive stuck his head in the door and told manager Felipe Alou they were hoping for a threehour window in which to play. When he left, Alou shook his head and quietly said, “Three-hour window? That man has obviously never been in a hurricane.”