TORONTO -- It’s the first day of August, and when you walk through the front door of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s home, you’re hit with waves of sound, people and purple.
Eight hours from now, he’ll hit a home run into the second deck of Rogers Centre. He’ll be the reason that 41,492 people roar as he rounds the bases, and the reason a few hundred thousand more will hear the stadium’s foghorn moan and rattle through downtown Toronto.
He’ll round second, slow his trot, then skip into the air and begin again. He’ll hold one finger to his lips to shush his third-base coach and the Blue Jays’ dugout while he passes, then step on home plate while another howling sellout crowd watches every little thing he does. This is Guerrero’s city. He’s the biggest star on the hottest show in Toronto, but this all comes later in the night. First, he has afternoon plans.
It’s Vlaimel’s birthday. Guerrero’s daughter is turning 8 today, and on the table inside sits a floral cake bursting with every shape and color. There are balloons with “Princess” written across them, a big, purple bear and every candy you could imagine, mixed in with the purple streamers and purple confetti. Then comes the star of the show, Vlaimel, in her purple dress with a purple bow in her hair. Her mother, Nathalie, is smiling right behind her, getting everyone ready for the big day. Vladdy’s moment is coming later tonight, but this one is Vlaimel’s.
Her father is sitting down by the pool, waiting for her. They’re going to make friendship bracelets together.
It’s so quiet here. Look around, and you wouldn’t know the address ended in “Toronto” at all. You can’t see another house, no condo towers or cranes, only the trees and Guerrero’s family all around him. Tonight, a million people will watch him, but this is where the other side of Guerrero lives.
By the time Vlaimel bounces down across the lawn and jumps on her father, it’s all laid out in front of them. There are spools of elastic string and trays filled with beads, letters, shapes, hearts and little baseballs. There’s something so unique about the bond these two have. Guerrero says it’s almost like they’re brother and sister sometimes. He’s still dad -- the man the entire Guerrero family and much of Toronto orbits around -- but in a way that just has to be seen and heard to really understand, they’re in this together.
When Guerrero is told that some questions will be coming in English today, Vlaimel jumps in.
“I got it, I got it,” she says, and she’s already beaming. There are cameras to Vlaimel’s left and right, but she’s a natural with this.
Besides, Vladdy has always credited Vlaimel for helping him with his English, which they speak at home with one another. They’re in this together.
Suddenly, sitting at this table in front of all of these beads, Guerrero has lost his home-field advantage. This isn’t his game. Vlaimel already has 13 friendship bracelets running up her left arm. He’s in Vlaimel’s house now.
Vlaimel has one word for her dad, and that’s “fun”. He makes her laugh, she says, and helps coach her in flag football and gymnastics. When it’s Guerrero’s turn, he says “love,” then turns to Vlaimel with that bright, boyish smile we’ve seen in Toronto since he was a teenager.
“I say ‘love,’ because every time I come home from the ballpark, no matter what -- even if I go 0-for-3 or 0-for-4 -- when I see her, my day changes,” Guerrero says. “That’s why I say ‘love.’ Every time I see her, I feel love in my heart. I thank God I have my daughter with me all the time.”
The two are unmistakable together. They have so many of the same mannerisms, the same eyes, that same smile that’s a little mischievous. It’s like they’re always in on a joke together, always scheming something the rest of the room doesn’t know about yet.
“She’s funny, but she cries a lot, too,” Guerrero says, and Vlaimel is already nodding. “I was like that as a kid, too, so that reminds me of when I was a kid. We’re exactly the same.”
While they talk, Guerrero keeps glancing over. He’s a few beads into his bracelet, but Vlaimel is already firing through them. Both of them start with a baseball in the middle of their bracelets, which happens without a word, but then they go in their own directions. Vlaimel’s bracelet, which she’s crafting for her father’s big wrist, is an explosion of colors. Vladdy’s, so much smaller for Vlaimel, is perfectly patterned. Purple and white, purple and white. He wants it to match her dress.
Then, Vladdy hits a wall. It’s time to tie the bracelet. It’s fascinating to watch the great Vladimir Guerrero Jr. struggle with something.
He’s twisting the strings and rolling them together with his fingers, but nothing is working. He’s scrunching his face and holding it an inch away from his eyes, but nothing is working. The show just rolls on with Vlaimel, though. It’s her day, and she can keep going all afternoon. She could host her own daytime talk show, but to her side, Vlaimel’s father sits, silent and baffled by these strings nearly too small to see.
Guerrero asks for Vlaimel’s wrist. Perhaps that will help, but it doesn’t. Fifteen minutes have struggled past by the time Guerrero enlists some of Vlaimel’s young cousins to help him. Jobs like these require experts. This is a job for small hands, not his hands.
Vlaimel wants to talk about baseball, too. Besides, she’s a Guerrero.
She says that Bo Bichette and George Springer are her favorite players, but she’s forgetting one, and she knows it. Vladdy is trying to give her small hints while she scrunches her eyebrows and tries to remember his name. The name she’s forgetting was a member of the “Barrio,” as the Blue Jays called him when he was with the team. He plays somewhere else now, remember?
“Teoscar [Hernández]!” she says, and Vladdy lights up. “Oh! And Shohei Ohtani!”
This side of Guerrero makes the version we see on TV each night make so much more sense. He can’t be that version all day, every day. It can crush a person. Guerrero needs balance. He needs a quiet backyard, surrounded by trees and all the people he loves, this silent hideaway on the outskirts of the city. He needs Vlaimel.
Even as Guerrero faced the biggest decision of his life earlier this year, he said that the hardest part was Vlaimel coming to him and asking, “Daddy, are we going to stay in Toronto?”
“One of the main reasons that I signed my contract in Toronto, it was for Vlaimel,” Guerrero says now. “Of course, it was for my entire family, but she loves the city. She loves it. She loves the fans. She’s always happy to be around [the stadium], and she’s always happy there. She’s one of the main reasons that I’m here in Toronto.”
Now, Toronto belongs to the Guerreros. If Vladdy’s 14-year, $500 million extension goes the way everyone hopes, they’ll be celebrating Vlaimel’s 22nd birthday in its final year.
The baseball game later tonight is a big one. The Blue Jays just pushed their chips in at the Trade Deadline, dealing for Shane Bieber, Louis Varland and Seranthony Domínguez. Guerrero’s club is shocking the sport, one of the best teams in baseball enjoying one of those magical seasons that don’t come around very often.
By the time Vlaimel is 22, her father could be the greatest Blue Jays player of all time. If he brings the World Series back to Toronto for the first time since 1993, there won’t even be a conversation. It’s always been Guerrero’s only goal, he says, and he wants to give the World Series ring to his father, who never won one. Then, he can win another for himself.
He can own this city.
Toronto doesn’t just love Guerrero because of how far he can hit a baseball. This city loves Guerrero because he loves it back.
“The thing I always say about the fans in Toronto is that they are very respectful. They’re respectful fans,” Guerrero says. “For example, when I go out for dinner, they see me, but they wait. They’ll wait for me to finish what I’m doing in the restaurant, so I get to finish my dinner. They’ll wait for me, then they’ll come to me, and they always say please. That’s very important to me, that respect they show me, and of course I’ll always give the same back to them.”
Tonight, the first home run will belong to Guerrero, but the first pitch belongs to Vlaimel. It’s her second time doing it, she says, why would she be nervous?
When Guerrero catches the ceremonial first pitch from his daughter, he pops up from behind home plate beaming. They have their own special handshake. They rehearsed it in the backyard a dozen times this afternoon.
They slap the front of their hands together, then the backs, before waving their fingers at one another. They lock eyes and do Guerrero’s trademark that he’ll soon need again when he rounds third base -- one finger to the lips, shush -- and end the choreography with a kiss.
These are the small moments when Guerrero’s two worlds come together.
On Vlaimel’s tiny, right wrist is the bracelet her father made for her and tried for half the afternoon to tie. The other 13 bracelets still run up her left wrist, but this one gets its own spot.
When her father reaches out to hug her, that big, mighty right wrist of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has a bracelet on it, too.