LOS ANGELES -- Legendary Los Angeles Dodgers scout Mike Brito had a harrowing ordeal last week in Mexico, where he was stranded with no water or electricity for two days after a hurricane struck the Baja peninsula, where Brito and another Dodgers scout were attending an 18-and-under tournament.
Brito is famous for signing Fernando Valenzuela and recognizable as the mustachioed man in the Panama hat with a cigar clutching a radar gun behind home plate at Dodgers games in the 1980s and 1990s.
He and fellow Dodgers scout Juan Castro were scheduled to board a flight to Mexico City last Monday after scouting a tournament that featured teams from Cuba, the United States, Mexico and other countries. But Hurricane Odile made landfall about 11 p.m. Sunday, and shut down the airport and all businesses in the town, La Paz, where the tournament was taking place.
Mexican media reported two confirmed fatalities in the storm, with three reported missing. Gangs were seen roaming neighborhoods, and 19 people were arrested for robbery and home theft in Los Cabos and La Paz, according to news reports.
Flights out of La Paz were canceled for more than a week, and Brito said he subsisted on cold sandwiches and potato chips for two days before the Mexican air force airlifted him, Castro and Castro's Mexican 18-and-under team to Mexico City, where he was able to get a flight back to Los Angeles.
"Thank God I'm still alive," said Brito, 80.
Brito caught his first glimpse of Valenzuela in the Mexican league in 1977 and signed him to a Dodgers contract two years later. Valenzuela went on to win the 1981 National League Cy Young Award and make six straight All-Star teams.
Brito also was part of the scouting contingent that traveled to Mexico and signed Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig two summers ago after Puig escaped from Cuba.