Season Ticket Subscriber offers social media shoutout to Blue Jays bullpen catchers

Looking after kids in the stands shows a human side of pro sports

As the Blue Jays media relations man, I remember arriving back from spring training on the team charter, the night of April 5, 2022. Two buses brought everyone to Rogers Centre, from whence everyone could find their locker, drop their baseball stuff in the clubhouse and head out to the condos, apartments and hotel rooms, their summer homes, in preparation for Opening Day.

As I stood next to the field, with a leg up on the top step of the home dugout, staring out at an eerily quiet and dimly lit diamond, the Jays’ first-year bullpen catcher, Luis Hurtado stepped up next to where I stood and stared wordlessly out at the field, with empty stands and giant scoreboard. He remained silent, but his eyes began welling with tears. He in his own unique way had arrived in the major leagues.

“You remind me and I get goosebumps right now,” Hurtado said as the Jays prepared for batting practice on Wednesday. “It was a dream come true. As a player, I signed with the team when I was 17-years-old. Then 16 years later you get to the ballpark you dreamed of when you were 17 and all the sacrifice, the hard work, all the obstacles that I had in my life. My career, as a player not playing every day, being a backup catcher, always wondering whether I would have a job next year or no. So, when we came to the ballpark and I was in tears, it just reminded me, I was remembering all the hard work and all the sacrifices I had been through to get here.”

By and large, social media, especially the platform formerly known as Twitter, has a tendency to give contrarian voice to vastly opposite outlooks that leave you shaking your head in despair and dismay. Many in this social climate, choose sides with vitriol and passion, preferring to point out shortcomings, negatives, failures, villains and other aspects of those they dislike in politics and sports.

So, when I came across this season ticket holder’s Tweet on my timeline singing the praises of a pair of usually anonymous Blue Jays’ bullpen catchers, Alex Andreopoulos and Hurtado, with the observed positive impressions, explaining the positive bond the two men have created with ticket holders and young fans sitting above and around the bullpen, I felt compelled to explore and discuss with Hurtado.

In a multi-part X post on Monday, that can be found by searching @OtherHalfAndri he describes the relationship fans -- especially the young fans – have  with these two seldom recognized Jays. The author has had season tickets at Rogers Centre above the Jays bullpen for 15 years and he describes what he has noticed over time, with these two men, that have been charged daily with the important task of making sure the starting pitcher and the relievers can stick to their routines and be ready to go.

More background is known about the Toronto native, Andreopoulos, who joined the Jays in variations of his current role in 2003.  The father of one caught at Seton Hall University, was all-Conference and was selected in the 17^th round of the June draft by the Brewers in 1995. He played for eight minor league seasons and 525 games, before landing a position with the Jays. He is, in fact, the longest serving member of the Blue Jays, in terms of in uniform personnel.

Hurtado, for his part, was unaware that anyone was noticing the generosity and humanity that he and Andreopoulos have demonstrated in their own low-key way. Why does he do it when there is no personal reward to be had?

“I think it comes from when I was a kid too and I went to ballparks and I was always looking for a baseball and trying to interact with players and coaches,” the native of Maracay, Venezuela said. “I wasn’t able to have the opportunity when I was a kid. I think now, in this role, I feel happy to do it, because it reminds me of when I was a kid. All those kids have the same emotions when they come to the ballpark trying to get a baseball or trying to talk to one of the players or coaches.”

Now living in Odessa, Florida, Hurtado is the father of two sons of his own and that responsibility to be a positive example weighs upon him, given his own experience with his supportive father.

“That’s my goal,” Hurtado said. “My dad told me one day, I want you to be better than me and I think that’s the biggest role model that I have is my dad. I just want my kids to look at me the same way as I’m looking at my dad. I’m trying to be better than my dad, but always looking at things that he taught me. That’s who I am right now and that’s what I want to leave for my kids.”

It was a long and grinding road for Hurtado following a playing career that ended at Triple-A Las Vegas in 2012. He has coached for the Jays at various levels of the minor-leagues and managed at A-Bluefield in 2019 and at A-Dunedin in 2021.

In 2020, the COVID year when the minor-league season was cancelled, Hurtado was given the special responsibility of caring for the Venezuelan minor-league players and others that were stranded and forced to remain in a Clearwater hotel making do with what they could. The list included catcher Gabby Moreno and RHP Max Castillo. Hurtado served as guidance counsellor and leader.

“I was with the Venezuelans that were stuck in the hotel,” Hurtado described with a certain amount of pride in his voice. “I was their mental support, talking working out, teaching them to be in a good place, with nutrition and the mental aspect.”

Now he and Andreopoulos take care of other kids … in the stands.