TEMPE, Ariz. – It had been a miserable 2013 for Kelly Pack. Her father had died, and then her Newcastle, Okla., home and its contents had been destroyed by tornados that ravaged the region in May.
But things started to turn for her and her family because she happened to be at her church when the phone rang.
The voice on the other end was Brian McCafferty, who said he represented a major league baseball player looking for a family in the community who needed help.
That’s how Hector Santiago came into the lives of the Pack family, and he has been there ever since.
“He gets it,” Pack said. “These people that make money like they do, they don’t even have to donate anything. Just calling a kid or showing up after something like this is a big deal to these kids.”
Santiago, 26, became an Angel when the club acquired him in a December trade, but as far as the Pack family is concerned, there was something divine about him already.
Throughout Santiago’s professional career, as the left-hander climbed through the Chicago White Sox system and reached the majors, he had a history of looking for people who needed help, from visiting with families after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., to sponsoring Little League teams to paying for sick children to attend White Sox games.
It comes from values instilled by his parents, and it was crystallized on Sept. 11, 2001, when Santiago sat in his New Jersey middle school and looked across the river at smoke billowing over the Manhattan skyline.
“I would have loved to be able to help out on 9/11,” Santiago said, “but I couldn’t do it there. So I do it here.”
That’s why it didn’t take him long last May, when he was reading details of the Oklahoma tornados that killed 24 people and demolished 12,000 homes, to get on the phone. Although Santiago had no connection to Oklahoma, he asked his agent to find a family who needed help.
The Pack family definitely qualified.
Kelly’s husband, Gary, was at home with two of their children, Bailey, 18, and Kassidy, 13, when the tornado ripped through their home.
“It was pretty scary,” Bailey said, her voice cracking. “I thought me and my sister and my dad weren’t going to make it. Hearing your house tear down around you, it’s a lot.”
When the rubble was cleared, the Packs had lost their home and anything they couldn’t carry out as they escaped. Of most immediate concern, though, was the room full of college supplies for Bailey, who was about to head to Oklahoma State.
Santiago, who was on the phone with Bailey within 10 minutes of McCafferty’s contact with Kelly, took it upon himself to replace what she had lost.
“The next morning I went to Target and Best Buy and bought a laptop and a bunch of stuff,” Santiago said. “I sent a few boxes of school supplies and a few hundred bucks. I called her and told her, ‘I sent you a care package.’”
Bailey Pack said she still hears from Santiago, offering support that her mother feels has been important to her recovery from the disaster. She said she still gets emotional when describing what he’s done for her.
“It means a lot,” she said. “It almost brings me to tears every time I think about it. It’s really humbling to me. I hope I can raise somebody like he is when I get older.”
Kelly Pack, who coincidentally grew up as an Angels fan, said Santiago has made a strong impact on her entire family, including her oldest son, Sam, who plays college baseball at South Dakota State.
“I hope if my son ever makes it big he would be that kind of person,” Pack said. “We have tried to raise our kids to tell them that money is not everything.”
Santiago, who so far has made only a little over the major league minimum of $500,000 each of his two full seasons in the big leagues, has done this before.
When he was with the White Sox, he created a program called “Santiago’s Soldiers,” in which he brought pediatric cancer patients to games. He also paid for 10-12 tickets per game for youth baseball teams.
“It ended up costing a few thousand dollars, but that’s our meal money for a few trips,” Santiago said.
In December 2012, Santiago spent a day in Newtown to console the community members after the Sandy Hook school shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed.
“Just talking to them, they appreciated it so much,” he said.
Santiago’s off-field work helped him earn the White Sox nomination for the Roberto Clemente Award, which goes annually to one player for his service to the community.
Shortly after the White Sox traded Santiago to the Angels as part of the Mark Trumbo deal, he reached out to the Angels public relations staff to find out where he could help in Orange County.
“Here’s a young guy whose head is spinning from a trade, and the forefront of his mind is ‘What can I do for you guys?’” said Eric Kay of the Angels PR staff. “A lot of people want to be involved, but they don’t ask or inquire that early. It says a lot about him.”
The Angels didn’t get Santiago because of his charity work. They got him because he’s a young left-hander with upside who they hope can be a solid contributor in the middle of their rotation for years to come. That’s what Santiago wants, too, but the sidebar is that the more prominent he becomes as a major leaguer, the more impact he can make off the field.
“People look at me, as a big leaguer, like a role model,” he said. “Right now it’s small time, just talking and not having the opportunity to do much, but hopefully it can be more.”
Contact the writer: jlfletcher@ocregister.com
