Gameday Magazine June

family said it was getting better and that made me happy,” Pantoja said. After a month in Arizona, Pantoja spent the remainder of his offseason on the east coast. He moved to Orlando, where he trained and stayed in the home of Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor, who is also a native of Puerto Rico. The two have known each other since Pantoja joined the Indians. “In 2014, he was the first guy on the team to call me,” Pantoja said. “I answered my phone and said ‘who is talking to me’? He said ‘Frankie.’ I said ‘Frankie Lindor?! Come on!’ He said ‘hey, I know you have talent, keep working hard no matter what. If you need something just tell me and I’ll see you soon.’” Pantoja met Lindor for the first time in Arizona when he was in the Indians instructional league, and Lindor was in the fall league. “I was sleeping and then somebody starting knocking on my door. I told my roommate to open the door,” Pantoja said. “He told me he was tired and I said me too, I don’t care. Then some- one said ‘hey open the door please!’” The person standing outside the door was Lindor. He got a key from the lobby and let himself into Pantoja’s room. “He said ‘wake up! I want to take you to dinner, you are like my little brother now.’” Pantoja said he works a lot with Lindor on both his hitting and fielding. “He plays at a high level that I want to play at one day. He tells me don’t think too much, just play your game and have fun.” After Cleveland was eliminated in last year’s postseason, Lindor bounced back-and-forth between his home in Orlando and Puerto Rico. He was constantly helping out with the relief efforts, bringing water and food on each trip. Lindor, along with some of his Indians teammates, donated a portion of their playoff salary, totalling

$37,000 for hurricane relief efforts on the island. The official death toll after the storm was 64 in Puerto Rico, but investiga- tions by other news organizations indicate there may have been more than 1,000 storm-related fatalities. The hurricane also caused $90 billion in damage. If Pantoja would have honored his commitment at Alabama State, there is no guarantee that his friends and family would have received the type of assistance they did, given the Indians connection. That decision was a life-altering one for Pantoja and his family, regardless of how far his baseball career takes him. “It was a hard situation for a lot of people,” Pantoja said, “and I appreci- ate everything.”