Pirates pleased with relief effort
we find a private jet and send some stuff there?’ ”
The thought processes collided when Cora spoke with Cervelli. He returned to Nutting with his answer: “Get a plane. We’ll fill it up. We’ll make it work.”
Now they need two planes.
On Thursday, the Pirates will fly to San Juan with 460,000 pounds of supplies and $225,000 to help the island, which dealt with flooding, massive power outages, loss of cell service and a humanitarian crisis after the storm hit last month.
“There’s no why,” Cora said Wednesday morning at the PNC Park loading dock, standing in front of a Ushaped wall of materials that extended down the hallway as far as the clubhouse on the other side of the stadium. “You don’t need a why to do anything. All you have to do is do the right thing. It’s that simple.”
Nutting, Cora, Gonzalez, Cervelli, team president Frank Coonelly and Rodriguez will travel to the territory. They will deliver supplies to Caguas, Cora’s hometown, and Cayey, where Gonzalez is from, during the next three days.
“In each city, each mayor in that city is going to meet us with a team of, their team of people, that is going to receive us, help us unload,” Gonzalez said.
“If not enough people come — because of gas, it’s hard to drive over there — then we’ll take it from house to house, as much as we can.”
The Pirates sent a news release at 10:02 a.m. Sunday announcing the collection of goods Monday and Tuesday. Four days later they have nearly half a million pounds of water, generators, food, childcare items and pet food, including 395,0000 pounds from local residents who clogged North Shore traffic with goods in everything from U-Hauls to wagons.
“As we all try to comprehend what has gone on in Las Vegas over the last day, it shakes your faith in your fellow human beings,” Coonelly said in reference to Sunday’s mass shooting at a country music festival that killed 59 people. “What we saw here … reinforces, for me, that there is so much more goodness in this world than there is evil.”
Coonelly needed a caravan of trucks on both ends and aircraft to make it happen. He called Patrick Fitzgerald, senior vice president of integrated marketing and communications at FedEx, and Fitzgerald gave him the biggest plane available.
“FedEx Ground is proud to call Pittsburgh home, and this is why we are so proud,” Fitzgerald said.
For the trucks in Pittsburgh, Coonelly called Pitt Ohio Express president Chuck Hammel. “I’ve got your back, whatever you need,” Hammel told him. The Puerto Rican transportation stretched beyond Coonelly’s network, but Cora had a guy: Raul Rodriguez, the president of Los Criollos de Caguas of the Puerto Rican winter league, who also has a trucking company.
“He’s the one that is getting all the trucks, all the warehouses, getting everything straightened up so we can deliver,” Cora said.
They have a lot to deliver, thanks to those who donated. Rodriguez, Cervelli, Gonzalez and Pirates employees staffed the Mazeroski Way cul-de-sac Monday and Tuesday. General manager Neal Huntington helped, roll of packing tape in hand. At one point Pirates employees turned around to see Andrew McCutchen lugging dog food out of the back of a van. When it was time to celebrate, Cervelli cooked pizza in a portable oven.
“This year we played terrible, and people came just to see us, to donate something, to give us a hug,” Cervelli said. “This is the best city in the world, I’m telling you. In one day we called everyone and they showed up.”