Luis Guerrero, 21
Two weeks ago, Luis Guerrero, was boarding a plane to West Palm Beach for his second minor league season with the Houston Astros. Today, he’s back in his red adidas slides, scrolling through his Instagram on a twin sized bed before an isolated work out at his parent’s home in Larchmont, New York. This is the new normal—Coronavirus Quarantine. A seismic shift in the life of a professional athlete.
The room I’m sitting in is small. The light’s pouring in and it’s hot. I sit on a memory foam twin mattress while I wait. Straight ahead I see my reflection in a small mirror where two baseball hats sloppily hang. On the left, a beat-up green New York Yankee hat. On the right, a Houston Astros cap. In this house, it’s clear that baseball is the bible.
Luis (who happens to be my kid brother) finally sloths in. We’ve been sharing a room, practically a bed, for the past 8 days. It’s lucky we get along. Can’t tell if he’s sick of me yet. He plops, face down, on the trundle mattress, revealing a long bald strip on the back of his head from his self-done haircut earlier in week. You can’t win ‘em all. He appears bored. Restless. Tired from nothing. His monotone blue outfit is quite different than his typical carefully curated sporty chic attire. Maybe, I think, this is a cry for help.
We are laughing, in the way siblings do, at each other, and I can’t help but to notice how little danger there is here. Even when the whole world is burning down, overtaken with disease, there is still a safety inside our shared space. That’s how most people feel around Luis, I think. He has a calm way of walking through the world that makes me want to scream. Like there’s no moment outside the one he’s living. I start firing off my questions, and though I notice an eye roll, his tone quickly shifts as he relaxes into the mattress and stops scrolling. The first sign that he might be invested in filling his time with something other than anime and eating.
Every question I ask centers around the Coronavirus. Every answer he gives me centers around baseball. I say where were you when you realized things were changing? He says “Spring Training.” I say how does this virus change things for you, he says, just like in baseball, life is all about adjustments and reactions. Luis’ answers tend to be short. But when I hear him talk, really talk, about the way he views the world, it makes me remember why life has unfolded the way it has for him. There’s a confidence in his voice that makes me open my eyes in a different way.
Luis’ routine has taken the heaviest hit through all this Corona chaos, but he’s doing his best to keep some semblance of schedule. There’s always gonna be someone out there that’s better than you, he says. That’s why you have to outwork everyone. When this is all over, Luis says he’ll come out stronger. There’s no time for backtracking when it comes to his baseball career. I feel like a lot of people are taking their foot off the gas. That’s not me. I’m still working. Still trying to keep up the same routine. I think my take away from this is that no matter what the circumstance is, you have to put in the work. Now is not the time to let up.
When Luis was younger, he tended to be overlooked. His voice shifts when he talks about it. I can tell that’s what fuels his fire. Lately, there have been a lot of yes’, he says, but during this time he can’t help but to reflect on the days when he was the smallest kid on the team. Always hearing no. Proving himself. Proving others wrong. People say that practice makes perfect, but really, practice makes permanent. It’s just as much about working smart as it is working hard. There have been a lot of dissapointments, a lot of travel teams I didn’t make, draft rounds I didn’t get chosen, but all of that just pushed me more. Luis is proof that when you bet on yourself, that pay day is a lot richer.
After he’s done dropping his metaphorical gems, our time together is done. I’m tired of asking about him, he’s tired of responding. If you could take only one thing into quarantine, I smile, what would it be. “My bat” he says, without skipping a beat. Shocker. If you could get rid of one thing you have with you in quarantine now, what would it be. “My sister.” He says even faster. Once he’s done cracking jokes at my expense I thank him for taking me seriously, and he raises his eyebrows and takes a deep breath. I like to think that’s his way of saying he was happy to do it. Luis jumps up from the bed and slides on a pair of white under armor leggings and a too tight (in my opinion) top. Time for his one-man workout. He flashes me a goofy look and he’s out the door.
When it’s quiet, I laugh, because I think Luis might be right. Maybe life really is just one big game of baseball. Just one big test of patience, and hard work, and home runs. Maybe this is our seventh inning stretch, where people get benched, and reevaluate their strategy, and change pitchers. Maybe we’ve struck out but maybe there’s still time left for a late-inning comeback too. We just need to adjust. And react accordingly.
This is a part of my new series, Quarantine Conversations, where I have honest conversations with the people around me about how Coronavirus has shifted our daily routines and mindsets.