If you’ve been under a rock for the last 12 hours or so you may have missed the news, but the United States of America invaded Venezuela overnight, bombed a military facility, kidnapped the president of Venezuela and then put him on a ship to bring him to the US to be put on trial for various crimes. They have then said that they (the US) will be running the country until some point in the future when things can transition peacefully.
There has been a lot of uncertainty in Venezuela for quite a while now. Things ramped up to a different level in recent weeks with the US telling other countries to avoid airspace over Venezuela. That left plenty of people in the baseball industry wondering how players from that country who were home for the offseason would be able to get out of the country and to the US for spring training.
With what happened last night/this morning, things are up another notch when it comes to uncertainty. Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is the first beat reporter that I saw have any direct information from a team. Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold was quoted as saying, through a team spokesperson, “We don’t have much info at the moment but are trying to follow up. We know the airports have been shut down but not much beyond that.”
From Hogg’s article he notes that the Brewers “find themselves in a state of flux in determining how to move forward with their players in Venezuela”.
Molly Knight, who has worked in the sports journalism ecosphere for ESPN, The Athletic, and The New York Times, noted the following on BlueSky:
There are a lot of MLB players and prospects from Venezuela. Been texting with people in several front offices and nobody knows how this is going to impact players and their families’ ability to get out. A total cluster****.
Baseball is not the important thing here in the grand scheme of things. The safety of the people involved is. Still, their jobs and at least to this point, livelihoods are dependent on playing baseball in the United States and Canada (as well as plenty of guys who play in Korea, Japan, Mexico, China, and Europe). . There are also plenty of players who are not from Venezuela who are currently there playing baseball.
To tie things in with the Cincinnati Reds directly – they have on player from the organization who is currently playing in the Venezuelan Winter League. Jose Franco, a pitcher who was just added to the 40-man roster in November, has pitched in 13 games for Navegantes del Magallanes this winter. While he’s the only player from the organization that played there this winter, he’s not the only player from the organization who is at home in Venezuela this winter. There are more than a few minor league players from the country who are back home as well.
Stay tuned…..
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