‘Family, the situation in Venezuela, baseball’

In the dream he’s back in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, where he grew up, during his childhood, except that Contreras is fully grown, not the kid who spent afternoons there playing soccer and baseball, and trying to knock mangos out of trees with rocks.

“I start walking around our old house,” he said, “and my dad grabs my hand and starts walking me through the spots where I grew up, reminding me where I used to play, what I used to do with my friends.”

It’s filled with warm memories, the Cubs’ catcher said, “a very special dream.”

And then he wakes up.

‘Nothing like you see today’

Puerto Cabello, on Venezuela’s northern coast, was the busiest port in the richest country in South America when Willson ran around with the other kids, chasing lizards, climbing trees and “bothering the neighbors.”

“It was a poor neighborhood, but it was, like, healthy,” Contreras said. “It was nothing like you see in the pictures today. Everything was way, way better.”

The pictures from across Venezuela increasingly show gutted town centers, violent protests in the streets, hungry children begging or scavenging, and patients dying in hospitals without medicine.

Close to two decades of economic decline and social unrest under the late Hugo Chávez and his handpicked successor, Nicolás Maduro, have created what the New York Times calls the world’s “single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years.”

“I’m just tired of seeing a lot of kids dying because they don’t have nothing to eat,” said Contreras, who has been an outspoken proponent for regime change and supporter of opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

Contreras, 27, has used his platform not only to speak out for Venezuela’s freedom but also to help collect and transport humanitarian aid.

“Venezuela’s tired of seeing a lot of old men dying because they don’t have medicine or because people cannot [afford] food,” said Contreras, who has discovered that actually delivering the supplies is the hardest part – especially when that aid is coming from the United States.

In February, a U.S.-financed aid ship tried to deliver more than 200 tons of food and medicine into Puerto Cabello – until a Venezuelan Navy crew threatened to “open fire,” turning back the ship.

“That’s the government,” Conteras said. “We use different routes. … It’s a lot of hard work. There’s a lot of mental side of the game to do that.”

‘Family, the situation in Venezuela, baseball’

If anybody understands the mental side of a game right now, it’s Contreras – who’s having by far the best first half of his baseball career, likely headed back to the All-Star game, while dealing with continued heartache and conflict off the field.

“It’s just like anybody else, anybody that works 9 to 5 or graveyard or whatever,” teammate Jon Lester said of his personal catcher. “When your kids are sick or things aren’t going well at home, you’re most likely going to bring it to work with you. For him to be able to separate those two things and you don’t hear about it, it’s pretty impressive.”

Manager Joe Maddon said he regularly checks in with Contreras about how things are back home, whether he needs to talk.

John Minchillo/AP Photo

Contreras talks daily with his younger brother William, 21, a Class AA catcher in the Atlanta Braves system.

“We talk about everything – family, the situation in Venezuela, baseball,” William said recently before a Mississippi Braves game. “Every time I go to the ballpark I forget everything. I play my baseball, I play hard, and forget everything, because it’s too hard as a guy from Venezuela.

“Then after the game, 20 minutes after the game, we talk, with family and everything. That’s the routine every day. It’s so hard.”

Willson makes much of it easier for William, the younger brother said.

He couldn’t have a better mentor professionally. And until a promotion about a week ago, William was able to live in Willson’s house near Orlando, just a 20-minute drive from the Braves’ high-A affiliate.

Their parents are there now.

After working on it since the winter and all through spring training, Willson was able to help secure their visas and eventually a flight amid unreliable schedules to get his parents out of Venezuela and to Orlando about a month into the season.

“It’s easier knowing they’re safe now,” William said.

The oldest Contreras brother, Willmer, has been unable, so far, to get clearance to travel to the U.S., but he is safe in Chile, Willson said.

Friends, extended family and many of Willson’s wife’s family remain in Venezuela, at risk.

Willson takes the ever-worsening news reports out of Venezuela hard; his wife, much harder, he said.

“I’m able to separate those from the field because I already understand that I can’t do anything to help Venezuela besides spread my word,” he said, “and work with my foundation to help a lot of people in Venezuela for food or medicine. Besides that, I can’t do anything, and that’s why I’m able to separate those from the field.”

‘Because I want to keep it’

Fortin Solano overlooks the port in Contreras’ hometown in Venezuela, a 250-year-old stone fortress built by colonialist Spain and eventually captured by patriots during Venezuela’s war for independence five decades later.

It’s one of the most recognizable landmarks in the region and became a beacon – an inspiration – to a young athlete coming of age in Puerto Cabello.

Contreras played baseball, soccer and basketball as a kid, often playing with adults by the time he was 12. As a soccer goalie he was known in his neighborhood as so athletic – and fearless – that when a group of men saw him walking near their game one day, “they stopped the game, and one team threw the goalie out to put me in there.”

As he began to grow into a serious athlete, Fortin Solano beckoned.

“I used to run up there, to the top of the hill,” he said.

Forty-five minutes, all uphill, culminating in a climb of dozens of steps to the fort’s entrance.

Yes, he nodded and smiled, just like the scene in Rocky.

“We love that movie,” William said with a laugh.

He said Willson viewed the run as a competition. And the younger brother even joined him.

“Sometimes,” William said. “Not a lot. It’s pretty hard.”

Much of what made Willson Contreras what he is today is still in Puerto Cabello – even if most of it is unrecognizable from just those few years ago.

After he signed with the Cubs as a 17-year-old in 2009, even the team’s Venezuelan academy was in his hometown.

“That worked out perfect,” he said. “I used to work out there and then go home, and the other players used to stay there.”

But home isn’t home anymore. Three years ago, with his notoriety in the Cubs’ organization rising, he started hearing about “a few weird cars around my house.”

Fearful his family would be targeted as other players’ families had, Willson helped his parents sell their house and move to a safer region south of Puerto Cabello.

Maybe that’s why another version of his recurring dream finds him back in that home with his mother.

“My mom tells me that we’re selling the house again,” he said, “and I tell her I’m interested in buying it because I want to keep it.”

And then he wakes up.

‘After that the kids came out’

What’s left of the Cubs’ Venezuelan academy in Contreras’ hometown is little more than a rutted, unkempt field.

“There’s nothing there now,” Contreras said. “Nobody plays. Nobody does anything there.”

Major league teams have shut down their academies in Venezuela over increasing safety concerns and extreme food scarcities – sending their youngest prospects from that country to the Dominican Republic to train and compete.

The last time Contreras went home was in December, driving into his old neighborhood with a car loaded with meals and with a private security guard.

Patrick Smith/Getty Images

“When my friends saw me there, getting out of my car, they came out like crazy,” he said. “We started hugging, and we started sharing moments and talking.

“After that the kids came out to me.”

They didn’t want hugs. They asked for food. And money.

“I said, ‘What you want the money for?’ They said they wanted to get something to eat; they hadn’t eaten all day,” Contreras said, his voice dropping, the emotion catching. “It was around 3 o’clock or 4 o’clock [p.m.]. It was really sad.

“I started pulling the meals out of my car and giving them to all the kids.”

Contreras doesn’t think he’ll go home this year, he said. The more vocal he has become against the Maduro regime, the more risk he takes of being a target there.

And as conditions worsen at home, the emotional toll adds up.

“It made me happy to be able to go back to where I grew up,” he said, “but at the same time seeing how things are now, it really made me sad because of what it’s become.”

‘Always on his mind’

Maybe the baseball is the easy part for Contreras. At least he has made it look that way this season for a team that has spent most of the season in first place – one of its top offensive performers while navigating a pitching staff ranked in the top five in the majors in ERA.

“This is the best he’s ever been working with our pitching staff, the best he’s ever been working with our coaching staff,” team president Theo Epstein said. “He’s made huge improvements being in control of his emotions during the game. His pitch calling’s been awesome. And obviously his offense has been fantastic.”

Contreras admittedly went to spring training on a mission after slumping badly following his first All-Star appearance last season. The summer before that, he was being touted as an early MVP candidate until a hamstring injury in August.

Early in camp this year he worked out in a T-shirt that across the front said simply:

Don’t Believe Me

Just Watch

He had worked on the mental part of his game over the winter, worked on a timing mechanism in camp that helped him at the plate and worked on an adjustment with his mitt to help improve his oft-criticized receiving.

Maybe the most visible change has been the calmer version of the high-energy, higher-passion player.

“I know that I play with a lot of emotions,” he said. “I also understand since last year that I’m going to fail more in this game than have success. That’s one thing that keeps my feet on the ground.”

Just watch.

Barring a sudden and extended slump, the top-hitting catcher in the majors this year is on track to become only the third catcher in franchise history to earn multiple All-Star selections, first since Jody Davis more than 30 years ago. Before that: Gabby Hartnett in the 1930s.

“It’s just been really intentional on his part and really impressive,” Epstein said. “And you add in a big part of his heart is focused on the turmoil in Venezuela. He’s found a way to focus for the 3½ hours, but we know how important it is to him what’s going on down there.

“It’s something that’s always on his mind.”

‘It could make it easier. Or worse’

Contreras is one of 68 Venezuelans to open the season on major-league rosters this year, all with similar stories of fear for loved ones and heartache over the worst humanitarian crisis in the hemisphere – an estimated 4 million citizens having fled the country.

“All those guys are unbelievable to have family down there, going through what they’re going through right now,” said former Cubs catcher and coach Henry Blanco, a Caracas native now coaching with the Nationals. “What Willson’s doing is tremendous.”

Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images

Hyperinflation has made the country’s currency worthless. Daily blackouts even in towns that still have working utilities are common. The country with the world’s deepest oil reserves suffers crippling gas shortages – along with deadly shortages of food, medicine and drinking water.

And risks associated with families of high-profile players being targeted have never been higher with the desperate conditions driving extreme crime rates.

Few know the risks better than Blanco, whose brother was killed by kidnappers in 2008 before he could reach them to pay for his freedom.

“It’s not easy, man,” said Blanco, who has since moved much of his family to Miami with him. “It’s not safe anymore. It’s terrible.”

And it pervades even some of the most basic, apparently unrelated decisions.

Contreras said he has not talked with the Cubs about a contract extension, even though the timing would be natural as he reaches his first arbitration winter after this season.

“I would love to. I love the team. I love Chicago. I love everything,” he said. “But baseball’s a business. I’m not putting focus on that right now.”

Even if it might provide more resources to make his humanitarian efforts easier?

“It could make it easier,” he said. “Or worse. You never know.”

Contract extensions make headlines.

Meanwhile, he can dream

As Contreras works on his game and a fifth consecutive playoff season for his team, the behind-the-scenes efforts for Venezuela continue, too.

He has a partnership with obviousshirts.com to sell “Freedom For Venezuela” shirts that he designed for 27.99 each, with 100 percent of profits promised to humanitarian aid.

And he stays in touch with John Pence, a Republican operative, nephew of vice-president Mike Pence and one of the loudest anti-Maduro voices associated with the Trump administration, in an ongoing effort to rally support for regime change.

“He’s been pretty good to me,” said Contreras, who expects to see Pence at Wrigley Field next month.

Whether Contreras will be celebrating that second All-Star selection by then, Maddon already suggests it’s a two-man conversation when discussing the top catchers in the league: Contreras and Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto.

“And of course Yadier [Molina],” Maddon remembers to add, referring to the Cardinals’ aging future Hall of Famer.

Veteran pitchers such as Kyle Hendricks and Lester talk about how they love to work with him, especially Lester, whose issues with holding runners have all but disappeared since the strong-armed Contreras replaced David Ross as Lester’s catcher.

“He makes my job a lot easier,” Lester said.

“It’s leadership,” Blanco said. “The energy that he brings to the game, the energy he brings to the pitcher. You’ve got to love that as a coach and as a pitcher. His aggressiveness. … I think in the future there is no doubt about it: He’s going to be the best catcher in the big leagues.”

Meanwhile, he can dream. Even if it keeps taking him to the same place these days.

“I had a fun time growing up, and I’m thankful for that,” Contreras said. “It makes me sad that all the kids growing up there now cannot have the same life that I had.”