The moment happened in a flash, yet it will long live in infamy.
Yuli Gurriel had put the Astros ahead in Game 3 of the World Series with a leadoff homer in the second inning off the Dodgers’ Yu Darvish, and he could hardly contain his excitement. The native of Cuba, who was coming off his first full season in the big leagues, had never hit a postseason home run. This was all he had imagined it would be.
Then, as he was celebrating in the dugout, Gurriel was caught by a camera making a slant-eyed gesture and mouthing the word chinito, Spanish for little Chinese guy.
His euphoria would turn into anguish before he could get a grasp of what was happening.
“It was the World Series, my first home run,’’ Gurriel said in Spanish late in the Astros’ spring training camp. “I can’t explain how excited I was. I didn’t even know what I was doing. But I know many people don’t understand that.’’
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Indeed, Gurriel became a pariah, the object of scorn in both traditional and social media. The Dodger Stadium crowd was relentless in its jeering of him when the series returned to Los Angeles for the final two games, and Game 6 starter Rich Hill deliberately took extra time before throwing his first pitch to Gurriel to let the booing sink in.
Never mind that once he learned his gesture is considered offensive in this country, Gurriel apologized to Darvish, a native of Japan. And having played in the Japanese league in 2014, Gurriel acknowledged he knew better than to brand all people from Asian countries as Chinese, so he apologized for that too.
Mostly, he was bewildered by how big the incident became, how it would threaten his participation in the World Series and result in a five-game suspension to start this season.
That was actually a compromise sanction worked out between Major League Baseball officials and the players association. Initially, MLB wanted to ban him for the next two games of the World Series, which would have hurt his team.
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Gurriel will serve the final game of the suspension Monday and, barring a late setback in his recovery from Feb. 28 surgery on the hamate bone of his left hand, he’ll be in the starting lineup Tuesday, coming back in time for the Astros’ championship ring ceremony.
And while he received plenty of support upon returning to his hometown of Miami, getting embraced by its large Cuban population, Gurriel says he also made sure to learn from his mistake. He realized sensibilities in his native island are very different from his adopted land, where he first arrived in the summer of 2016.
That was one of the lessons from the sensitivity training he was assigned as part of his penalty, an eight-hour session taught at his home in January by a Spanish-speaking instructor.
“I learned about things that may seem insignificant, but that are important,’’ Gurriel said. “Since I went through that bad experience, it’s worth learning from it. And I’m going to share that knowledge with other people who might come here from elsewhere just like me, so something like that doesn’t happen to them.’’
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Houston pitcher Dallas Keuchel said Gurriel found out the spotlight can be on a player at any time during a game, especially after he does something noteworthy. And manager A.J. Hinch said another lesson was that actions always have consequences, whether intended or not.
But Hinch also said there was a societal lesson that shouldn’t be lost, especially when it comes to people from other countries.
“I think we have to learn to give the benefit of the doubt to some people sometimes, because if you know Yuli, you know his background and you know his beliefs, you know he didn’t intend to offend as much as he did,’’ Hinch said. “We race to judge anybody who does anything nowadays, whether it is through social media or whether it is through recognition.’’
Gurriel has maintained all along his gesture was not malicious, and made that very point by doffing his helmet toward Darvish before his first at-bat of Game 7.
Several days before that, his teammates had come to his defense, consistently painting a picture of Gurriel as a jovial type who has made friends throughout the team despite his limited English-language skills.
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The former Cuban league legend had proven himself during the season when, as a 32-year-old rookie, he batted .299 with 18 homers and 75 RBI. He then hit .304 with an .864 OPS in the postseason, including a home run off Clayton Kershaw in the Astros' wild and pivotal Game 5 victory, one day after his suspension was announced.
But it wasn’t until his moment of crisis that Gurriel found out how highly his teammates thought of him as a person.
“Getting into a situation like that during the World Series with all the attention it draws, and then to have your teammates support you, it gives you a big confidence lift,’’ Gurriel said. “You really appreciate your teammates, because in a moment like that you need them.’’
Ortiz reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.
