His AA club, the Azucareros de Yabucoa, was in the thick of the Puerto Rico League race, which didn’t stop the fans of the Quebec club from jumping to conclusions. In their eyes, it was clear evidence that their beloved receiver was getting ready to return to Quebec!
The end of Yabucoa’s season came just 16 days later, on August 12, the day of the trade deadline in the independent Frontier League baseball.
Shivers thinking about it again
When reminded of the anecdote, through the Spanish translator of Les Capitales, Raymond Boisvert, Ruben Castro sketches a broad smile. Then he points to the hairs covering his right arm with the tip of his index finger.
The 28-year-old athlete shows that he gets goosebumps just thinking about the glowing comments from Quebec City fans who were frantically demanding his return to social media after a trivial Facebook photo change.
Then Castro’s eyes mist over, filling with tears of gratitude as he recalls the expressions of appreciation from baseball fans in the capital. A good fifteen, maybe twenty, fans have written him personally, begging him to come back. Some of them children.
“Quebec is my second home,” says the man with the famous yellow shoes. “The comments were so flattering, it was heartwarming to receive all this love and affection.”
“It made me love Quebec even more.”
— Ruben Castro
Moved to tears
Reserved by nature, the former shortstop must look away and stare into space to regain control of his emotions.
Castro no longer smiles after finishing his answer. Like the author of these lines, Raymond Boisvert is touched by the moment.
— He’s moved, isn’t he, Raymond?
—Really, agrees the friendly translator, pointing out that it is easier to become emotional when speaking from the heart in one’s mother tongue.
Leaving in the middle of a tropical storm
Ruben Castro Ortiz believed, at the beginning of August, that he was capable of giving the Azucareros a playoff championship, a first since the triple crown won from 1994 to 1996, but it was ultimately the Florida Titans who got the better of the team from Yabucoa, a city whose economy is mainly based on the cultivation of sugar cane.
A few hours after the elimination, the main person concerned packed his bags for Quebec even though the strong winds (120 km/h) and the dense rain of the tropical storm, Ernestohit the small Caribbean island, leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power.
“All I wanted to do was get to Quebec,” said Castro, who became friends with Ruben Ramirez, Juremi Profar and Jeffry Parra over his years with the Capitales. “The hurricane hit hard the morning I left, but at 3 p.m., my flight was able to leave without any problems.”
“My family was fortunately spared.”
— Ruben Castro
By bike or moped
The former Houston Astros draft pick in 2014 has earned himself many admirers in our city, which he has come to love for its quietness. Since his arrival in 2021, he has crisscrossed Quebec City, located thousands of kilometers from his native Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States with a population of more than three million, largely by bicycle or moped.
Will the humble receiver be able to repeat his exploits of 2022 and 2023 in the coming weeks? The bar is high, but the man of big occasions from the Quebec diamond will do everything in his power to live up to the title of most valuable player that he deserved in the last two playoff rounds.
In great shape
Castro is confident he will achieve this. He says he is in great physical shape due to the CrossFit training regimen he followed rigorously during the winter.
“No matter the uniform, I always give 100% on the field, I try to make my team win,” he explained. “People should expect me to do it again this year. If I manage to surpass what I’ve done in the past, well, so much the better, it will be good for the Capitales.”
The tears of joy may not have finished flowing…
