Like his good friend Molina, Wainwright embodies Roberto Clemente’s spirit
By Luis Nolla
ST. LOUIS – For much of their careers with the Cardinals, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright have been linked tighter than most other teammates in baseball.
Yadi and Waino, Waino and Yadi – Cardinals for life.
They’re among the most respected men in baseball for more than their excellence on the field. They’re leaders in the clubhouse and the community, helping the less fortunate in St. Louis, Puerto Rico and beyond.
They’ve been a starting battery for 261 games, the eighth most in baseball since 1908. More impressively, though, Wainwright is the Cardinals Roberto Clemente Award nominee a year after his good friend Molina was the Cardinals’ nominee and the eventual 2018 Roberto Clemente Award winner.
“Everything I’ve ever heard about Roberto Clemente was that as great of a player he was on the field, he was that great of a man and humanitarian off the field,” Wainwright said.
In 2013, Wainwright founded Big League Impact, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to save lives, restore dignity and instill hope in local communities and around the globe.
Wainwright has held a couple marquee events in St. Louis. The first event was Swing For Impact at Top Golf in St. Louis, where 200 golfers and Cardinals players participated.
Through BLI, Wainwright raised $51,000 to benefit the Cardinals’ All Win campaign, helping Crisis Aid and Operation Food Search feed local families, as well as funding for a STEM farming program at Normandy High School in St. Louis.
The second event that Wainwright does in St. Louis is the Fantasy Football Fundraiser. He began this event in 2013. It’s easily his biggest charitable event.
This event got so big that nine big league teams held their own draft. This event has raised $2.5 million. This year Wainwright is representing IDADEE Hospital, a non-profit organization that provides support to children and youth in Haiti.
Wainwright has used his celebrity to fund hospitals in Haiti, raising money to feed 200 families in South St. Louis, raising money to launch meals programs in rural areas surrounding St. Louis and raising money for a STEM Program and a Sustainable Farm at Normandy High School in St. Louis.
Wainwright and BLI partnered with Country Music superstar Garth Brooks and his foundation Teammates for Kids and MLB to create the Home Plate Project. Through that effort, they enlisted more than four dozen big leaguers to donate $300,000 to fight childhood hunger prevention and battle food insecurity.
Wainwright and Brooks’ Home Plate Project will provide more than 3.6 million meals to more than 25,000 children in the United States and Canada.
If Wainwright wins the Roberto Clemente Award this year he will become the fifth Cardinal to win it. The other four players are Molina, Carlos Beltrán, Albert Pujols, and Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Lou Brock.
Clemente “set the bar for all of us,” Wainwright said, “and I just can’t think of a better compliment than to be nominated for his namesake award.
Molina earner the award last year in large part for his work to help his native Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria, which pounded the island in September 2017. The category 4 hurricane caused a lot of destruction throughout the island, leaving people without power for months.
A day after the hurricane went through the island, Molina was already organizing a relief mission. Molina created Foundation 4 in 2010 as a non-profit to help children who have suffered from abuse, neglect, cancer, disease, or poverty. In 2017 he basically changed the goal of his foundation to hurricane relief.
Molina arrived in Puerto Rico two days after the Cardinals finished the 2017 season. Almost immediately after returning home, he hand-delivered all of the items that people donated and/or kwas able to buy with the money raised. Food, ice and water were among the items he handed out. He handed out items for two weeks straight. All in all, Molina was able to raise over $800,000 for hurricane relief.
Molina was the third Puerto Rican to win the award, following 2013 winner Beltrán, who won the award when he played for the Cardinals.
Beltrán, Wainwright and Pujols have all been teammates in St. Louis. Pujols mentored Molina, taking him in like a “little brother,” as both superstars like to say. Beltrán and Molina were also the two more respected veterans on Team Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic.
Since Pujols left the Cardinals to join the Angels, though, Molina and Wainwright have been the two most respected veterans in the St. Louis clubhouse. Now, Wainwright hopes to join Beltrán, Molina and Pujols among the few who have won the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award.
“Wainwright has shown his dedication to humanitarian efforts time and time again,” said Michael Hall, the executive director of Cardinals Care. “We admire his worldwide efforts to help people in need. We are proud to have him as a member of the Cardinals.”
Photo credits: St. Louis Cardinals Archive