ST. LOUIS – As charities poured into Texas after the devastating floods, Willson Contreras quietly held a small event at a coffee shop near Busch Stadium. There were no banners, no media. Just a wooden table, a hot espresso, and three black notebooks – frayed edges, handwriting streaked with ink and the marks of time.
It was Contreras’s personal game diary, recording each day of the season, with lines like:
“I didn’t play well today, my fault for not keeping my head up.”
“Mom called from Caracas, crying when she heard about the floods in Texas. I prayed.”
“Day 98 of the season – I miss home, but I have to keep fighting for this jersey.”
When asked why he chose such an unusual form of donation, Willson replied:
“Anyone can give money. But I want to give something real – something that I put my heart, my faith, and my sweat into. If those words can turn into a meal or a dry mattress for a family in Texas, then I am willing to share my deepest secret.”
The auction attracted thousands of people, from Cardinals fans to international collectors. Within three hours, the first notebook – which recorded 47 consecutive days of play and included a poem for his mother who was undergoing cancer treatment – was purchased for $320,000.
In total, the three diaries raised more than $1.1 million, all of which went to the Texas Rebuild Fund, a community-run organization that does not use intermediaries.
Soon after, a photo of an elderly woman holding a copy of a diary page, reading quietly among the rubble of her flood-damaged home, went viral on social media.
She said only one sentence:
“I don’t understand all of your English, but I understand the loneliness in each of your words. And today, it warms me.”
Willson Contreras didn’t write to be remembered. He wrote for himself. But now, those silent lines have saved dreams that are drowning in the floodwaters.
“Maybe I can’t stop the flood,” he said, “but if one line of mine can keep a belief alive, then I will write for the rest of my life.”