The 2024 Dodgers season rolled along and with the turning of the calendar to May, the Dodgers injuries really took a toll. They were playing solid baseball but not dominant as many predicted. Still, in the pupae stage of the season, optimism was high. The addition of Teoscar Hernandez provided a new charm and whimsy to the team and he settled into the role of the much younger, fun brother.

There’s a special bond between teammates; a kinship, a camaraderie amongst locker room mates that manifests itself over a long season and the Dodgers were starting to form that connection. An influx of two Japanese stars, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, added an international flavor to the culture and with each game, they were becoming brothers.

The Dodgers have actually had a couple brother combos on their team, over the years. Dodger star Steve Sax shared the locker room with his Catcher brother, Dave Sax, for a period of time. And, of course, baseball’s greatest brother combo, Paul and Lloyd Waner, played one season for the Brooklyn Dodgers, toward the end of their Hall of Fame career. Big Poison and Little Poison Waner, as they were known, were able to fulfill a dream few do; share a professional sports locker room with their brother.

The 2024 Dodgers didn’t have any blood relations on the team, but they shared a unifying goal that grew stronger with each new injury. Sadly, more injuries were around the corner and one horrific event was waiting in the wings.

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There were originally four Andrade brothers. Sadly, the second, Ajax, died very young so three Andrade brothers grew up together. Arturo Cuautemoc, Alfredo Rolando and Alberto Plinio. Pete, Rolly and Plinio.

The disparate paths they took through their lives stemmed from their upbringing and then their endeavor as immigrants. Uncle Pete came to the United States first, to attend Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma. He was shortly followed there by Rolando, my dad. Two men who came to this country to be ministers. Plinio didn’t want to come to this country and didn’t want to leave Mexico but when he learned he would be denying his three younger sister’s opportunities in the U.S., he choose self-sacrifice. It worked out well for all of them.

My dad and Plinio represented two sides of a spectrum. Rolando was very sick as a child. A severe lung infection became Pleurisy and led to a catastrophic surgery when he was eight, the removal of a portion of his left lung. Miraculously, he survived. They had no penicillin, no nerve blocks for anesthesia (only ether, look it up) and surgical conditions I can only describe as medieval at best. They were closer to Civil War medicine than modern medicine. After surviving, he was placed in a sanitarium for many months; isolated, a young child removed from his friends and family and alone. He turned to books and reading. After his release from the sanitarium, Rolando’s mother sheltered him and kept him from doing many of the thing’s kids do, such as playing with other kids.

Plinio, as described by nearly everyone, was a wildcard. A person of infinite energy and passion, he pushed back against an upbringing that was based on discipline, form and religion. My dad often told me a story that as he sat in his room, watching the other kids play outside, Plinio’s friend arrived, sporting boxing gloves. Plinio and his buddy, each wore one glove and proceeded to box. After his friend realized Plinio was gonna give him a right ass-kicking, he threw his glove down and ran away as Plinio chased after him to fulfill the beating. Plinio was one of a kind. The finest kind.

Now, this isn’t to say he was a bad kid or person, he just pushed the boundaries and for that, received more than a few whooping’s from grandfather. But it also created his character, his personality and made him a revered Andrade.

As Rolando and Pete attended college, education wasn’t to be in the cards for Plinio and though he may not have been educated in the parlance of what society deems it to be, Plinio was educated in the world. Where my dad wore the robes of academia, Plinio worked in the blue-collar world and gained every inch of respect my dad did.

Two very different brothers but two men as close as brothers could be. Whereas my dad was respected and loved, Plinio was beloved and respected. He grew to be everyone’s favorite uncle, the life of the family get-togethers and the straw that stirred the drink of the Andrade culture. My first beer? The sip of Coors Plinio let me have after opening the pull top. Where Rolando taught me to read at five, Plinio pointed at a world beyond the classroom.

My dad could have become a snobby, upper crust academic but his relationship with his younger brother grounded him in the world outside of the ones and zeroes of college. As Plinio met Joyce and started a family, Rolando went back to school to become a teacher, met my mom and started his own family. Plinio’s in Enid, Oklahoma and Rolando’s in Norman, Oklahoma. The proximity cemented a closeness between the brothers and a closeness between the two nuclear families that still exists. When my dad moved us to Bowling Green, Ohio to teach at BGSU, it was the start of a separation from his brother and began thirty years of isolation that strained but never broke the ties.

Beautiful men and though their minds may have differed, and paths divided, Alfredo Rolando and Alberto Plinio mentally stood side-by-side. Through more than eight decades their hearts beat in brotherhood’s light, their nexus a shared quality of two men who lived their own lives with an eye to the greater.

As they began to age, each started to be affected by the ravages of decades. Plinio and his family came to Los Angeles to celebrate Rolando’s 80th birthday and I cannot think of another time after that where they were in the same room. Travel was difficult and distance hard to overcome. When my dad would call, generally it was Joyce he’d spoke with.

Aunt Joyce. As a caregiver, I know it can be a difficult path to take care of an elderly person, especially a family member you care about. Joyce took care of her husband of many years and that is an act of love that cannot be bettered. All my respect and love to you, Aunt Joyce.

Plinio began to fade first. As Rolando began to go in and out of hospitals, Plinio soon followed. His maladies were of a more severe internal matter, and it appeared to take much of the mirth and joy that defined Plinio’s life. My cousin Rick would keep me up to date on his dad’s condition just as I would he for my dad’s. Soon, it became a virtual game of phone tennis, relating medical updates.

Now, I understand my dad was in his nineties and Plinio his eighties, but it was eerie that they began to slow at the exact same time. It almost felt as if it was one last moment of togetherness between them; that unspoken connection between siblings, even when life sends them in opposite directions. Maybe it’s emotional, maybe it’s spiritual. Maybe it’s just that kind of deep, DNA-level understanding that says: I’ll go when you’re gone. I’ve done what I came here to do.

I don’t know if there’s science behind that. I’m not sure I need there to be. What I do know is that these moments make me think what survives us- memories, of course, but also patterns. Echoes. The way certain people, especially those born close together, raised together but lived separate create an aura of love that sustains beyond the boundary of life and death.

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On Cinco de Mayo, 2024, Rolando and I had a little day. Heather was still in the hospital, and we went to visit her. Dad in his wheelchair and my girl receiving oxygen was quite the sight. Still, it was good to see her and Rolando was in good spirits. We went home and I cooked Mexican food (for the holiday) for the Dodgers-Braves game. Shohei Ohtani hit two home runs and the Dodgers won 5-1. They were in first place. It would be the last Dodger game my dad would fully watch with joy.

On May 6th, 2024, Alberto Plinio Andrade passed away. A magnificent light had been dimmed and a wonderful voice silenced.

I salute you, Uncle. We all miss and love you.

Kevin R. Andrade

This is the fifth part in the series Fernando, Freddie, Rolando and Me.