Flight from Cuba shapes an All-Star
First baseman returning to adopted hometown
“He deserves to be an All-Star as well. Like I told him, ‘I want you to enjoy every minute that I’m enjoying, right next to me.’ ” — Yonder Alonso, left, on his father, Luis
The call from Oakland came early in the day.
“We yelled in pure joy,” Luis Alonso said. “Right then and there.”
Alonso was with his wife, Damaris, for a Sunday breakfast at a Miami Denny’s when their son FaceTimed with the news.
The child they flew out with in the middle of the night with his younger sister to escape Cuba 22 years ago was an AllStar.
First baseman Yonder Alonso will represent the A’s at Tuesday’s All-Star Game in the family’s adopted hometown, Miami. He’ll suit up at Marlins Park, not far from where he grew up and attended school at Coral Gables High and the University of Miami.
“I’m in a cloud,” Luis Alonso said. “I’m in a cloud just like him.”
This is the epitome of a fullcircle journey, beginning with that flight from Havana to Miami, which was about life and death, risk and sacrifice, new opportunities and a new life.
It’s culminating Sunday when Yonder flies to Miami again. This time in a private jet with fellow All-Star Nelson Cruz of the Mariners.
This flight, from Seattle, where the A’s finish the first half, will be about acknowledgment, benefits of hard work and a family reunion that centers around baseball.
Baseball always was a central theme for the Alonsos, from when Luis played (as a catcher) and coached for Havana’s Industriales of Series Nacional, the Yankees of Cuba. He had a prominent role, respect in the community and celebrity status.
Then he came to the U.S. and, with Damaris, took on various parttime jobs including cleaning offices and warehouses, sometimes getting assistance from his children.
“It was very difficult. You try to make ends meet,” Luis said in a phone interview through A’s interpreter Juan Dorado. “We made a lot of sacrifices in working three or four jobs at a time and trying to provide for the family.”
Yonder, 30, never forgot it, which is why he plans to honor his dad during All-Star festivities and hopes to have him on the field in an All-Star jersey.
“He deserves to be an All-Star as well,” Yonder said. “Like I told him, ‘I want you to enjoy every minute that I’m enjoying, right next to me.’ My dad’s somebody I really look up to. My role model. I’m an All-Star, but he’s right there with me.”
Luis: “I’m super excited he wants to share this with me, but I want him to enjoy it for him. I told him he can’t worry about me, that I’ll be there for him, whether I’m near or far.”
In a gripping firstperson essay posted on the Players’ Tribune site in April, Yonder explained the circumstances of the family’s exit from Cuba.
It was 3:30 a.m. when Luis woke up Yonder and told him to grab his stickball bat and get in the car. The family was going on a trip. The parents and children climbed into a small propeller plane, which the pilot initially flew low to the ground to avoid being spotted.
The trip was a secret. Yonder’s parents would have been thrown in jail if authorities found out. Luis and Damaris cried. So did Yonder. Yainee was too young to understand the significance of the moment.
Once removed from the Havana coast, the pilot flew higher. It wasn’t long before the sun came up and the family’s new home would be on the horizon. The wheels touched down in Miami, and U.S. immigration welcomed the Alonsos. They were free.
It wasn’t easy at first. In Yonder’s words, they were “leaving poverty for poverty.” Luis had a connection, someone in his baseball circle who defected from Cuba on a raft and worked in a Miami warehouse. He got Luis a job.
The family rented a tiny, one-bedroom house in a Cuban neighborhood. The kids slept on “a rickety sofa bed.” Luis got other odd jobs. Instructing at a baseball academy. Umpiring softball games. Cleaning offices and warehouses. Damaris looked after the kids and also worked multiple jobs.
The parents usually worked into the night, and Yonder’s focus was to excel in school, take care of Yainee and play baseball. He was destined to be a big-leaguer. It was a “life-or-death pursuit.” It wasn’t pressure, it was something that had to be done.
In high school, Yonder helped his folks clean offices and warehouses. Everyone chipped in. He was good enough to be drafted in the 16th round in 2005 by the Twins, but his parents pushed him to go to college.
Yonder accepted a scholarship to the University of Miami. He played ball. He studied. He continued to clean offices and warehouses. He was good enough to be drafted seventh overall by the Reds in 2008.
This time, he signed. The contract was for $4.55 million. Yonder bought his parents a house. No more cleaning offices and warehouses.
“Beautiful,” Luis said of the house, where he and his wife still live.
They both still work, Luis as a Sherwin-Williams warehouse manager and Damaris as an accountant. “We believe in work,” Luis said. “Every day, you have to keep working, although we do work less, not quite as much.”
It repeatedly has been reported that Yonder was 10 when the family left Cuba, but Luis said his boy was 7 and that the date was Feb. 10, 1995. Yonder turned 8 the following April.
More important is what has transpired since that date and how the relationship between father and son solidified.
“I talk to him every single day and share a lot with him,” said Yonder, who estimates his dad has seen “97-98 percent” of the at-bats in his lifetime. “He’s aware of my work, how I feel, how I go about my days, and I know he’s very excited for me for this incredible, humbling, blessing experience of going home to Miami, my city, and being in an All-Star Game. That’s the ultimate, I think.”
Yonder credits both parents for his success in baseball. Luis constantly provided encouragement. …
“He was very supportive, always looking to tomorrow and the next day, saying tomorrow will be a better day no matter if today is a good day or bad day. Tomorrow can always be better. When I had some rough patches last year, he always supported me.”
… while Damaris provided reality checks.
“My mom’s truthful and hard on me. She never played the game, but she really did mentally. When I’m down on myself, she gives me the ‘Get your head out of your … You’re better than this.’ My dad is, ‘I understand the game is hard, there’s always tomorrow.’ He’s more soft where my mom is, ‘You’ve got to pick it up. You’re playing bad.’ She’s the tough cookie in the family when it comes to baseball.”
Luis got a kick out of his son’s assessment: “That’s exactly how it is. We can’t both be too easy, or we can’t both be too strong. There has to be a balance.”
Yonder didn’t exactly live up to his billing right away as the seventh overall draft pick. The Reds traded him to the Padres in December 2011, and San Diego sent him to Oakland in December 2015.
At a crossroads in his career — the A’s considered non-tendering him last winter — Alonso intensely worked on restructuring his swing with help from Danny Valencia (his former A’s and University of Miami teammate), Manny Machado (his brother-inlaw, Yainee’s husband) and Mike Tosar (a former Miami player and longtime pro scout and coach).
Alonso added a leg kick, began using an uppercut and relying on his lower body, and found himself with newfound power. Entering Saturday, he was hitting .279 (26 points higher than last year) with a .374 on-base percentage (58 points higher) and .562 slugging percentage (195 points higher).
His 20 home runs are a career high and surpass his previous three seasons combined.
It’s a subject dear to his father’s heart.
“Fifteen games into last season, he started to make changes with the leg kick and hand path,” Luis said. “He would call me and say, ‘Hey, I’m doing things I’ve never done before, working on these changes at the plate that I’ve never been able to do, and it’s changing the way I’m looking at the game and the way I’m swinging the bat.’
“Right now, you see how he’s producing. It’s exciting.”
The father said the credit belongs to the son, who’ll celebrate his first All-Star Game with his family, including wife Amber, 18-month-old son Troy, parents and sister, who’ll be with Machado, the Orioles’ third baseman, a non-All-Star this year.
“Hopefully in the years to come, he will be able to play in many more,” Luis said of Yonder, “but I do not think any will be as special as this one.”