After Harvey, baseball lends a helping hand

The Houston Astros were to give out 10,000 Carlos Correa replica jerseys to fans at Saturday’s game against the New York Mets. In light of the massive flooding and destruction unleashed by Hurricane Harvey, the shirts will go to evacuees at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.

Not surprisingly, the response from the baseball and sports worlds in the aftermath of Harvey has been immediate and generous.

Astros owner Jim Crane and The Astros Foundation announced that they will donate $4 million to relief efforts. Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association will jointly donate $1 million to various relief efforts in the state of Texas, including to the American Red Cross.

Across the country, leagues, teams and owners opened up their wallets to lend a helping hand. Locally, Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander upped his initial pledge to Mayor Sylvester Turner’s Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund from $4 million to $10 million. Houston Texans owner Bob McNair pledged $1 million to the United Way of Greater Houston’s flood relief fund.

And a YouCaring initiative by Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watts that began with a $200,000 goal got a $1 million donation from Wal-Mart via Ellen DeGeneres’ TV show and another $1 million from Tennessee Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk, surpassing $11.6 million as of early Thursday afternoon.

Players step up

In Anaheim, Angels superstar outfielder Mike Trout added three zeros to his uniform number and pledged $27,000. Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Scott Kazmir, a Houston native, pledged $130,000 to four different charities, including the Houston SPCA.

St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Matt Carpenter — who was born in Galveston, Texas, and grew up in the Houston area — pledged $10,000 for every home run he hits through the end of the season, prompting teammate Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals to agree to match his donation. Carpenter promptly collected his first $30,000 check on Tuesday by blasting a 426-foot home run against Milwaukee, his longest since April.

Whether all these outbursts of generosity will suffice remains to be seen, as the effects of the flooding continue taking a toll. Local officials have confirmed at least 38 deaths. More than 30,000 people remained in shelters across the region. FEMA reported that more than 95,000 people have applied for emergency assistance. Explosions were reported Wednesday night at a flood-ravaged chemical plant northeast of Houston. And on Thursday, state officials ordered forced evacuations in areas threatened by new flooding.

“The reports that I’m getting are terrible. I think that you are seeing only the tip of the iceberg,” Crane said on Thursday in a telephone interview with MSNBC. “It’s a big mess.”

The Astros were forced to move a home series this week with the Rangers to Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. The negotiations over where to play the three games ignited a controversy between the Astros and Rangers, but in the end the Rays set the example by being exemplary hosts and donating ticket, parking and concession revenues from the series to relief efforts.

For their part, the Rangers pledged $1 million to relief efforts and will donate all proceeds from their 50/50 raffle next weekend to the Red Cross. Major and minor league teams were pitching in, using events of all stripes to raise money.

Mayor’s request

Instead of staying at The Trop for their three-game weekend series against the New York Mets, the Astros surprised many by agreeing to return to Minute Maid Park to play a day-night doubleheader on Saturday and a single game on Sunday.

“That was at the request of the mayor. We probably won’t have a lot of people coming to the game or thinking about baseball, considering all what is going on,” said Crane, also chairman of Crane Worldwide Logistics, a transportation and logistics company. “He wanted the games on; he wanted to get the city back to normal as fast as possible.

The Astros will give the mayor’s office free tickets to distribute “as he sees fit,” said Crane, including 5,000 for each game for first responders.

“We feel that the Astros playing this weekend will provide a much-needed boost for our city,” Turner said in a written statement. “With all the difficulties that many of our citizens are facing, the games will provide an opportunity for families to start returning to some aspect of normal life.”

The Mets players were organizing a volunteer project for Friday in Houston.

“Pretty much everyone I talked to was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do something,’” reliever Jerry Blevins, who polled teammates before announcing the players’ initiative, told MLB.com. “We’ve got a good group of guys here that want to help out some fellow Americans in need.”

Jay Bruce, a former Mets outfielder who was recently traded to Cleveland, is matching donations up to $100,000 through Sept. 10 to the Cleveland Indians Charities to help his hometown of Beaumont and other Southeast Texas communities. As of Thursday noon, Cleveland Indians Charities had raised nearly $50,000.

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