The Atlanta Braves and Baseball in Venezuela – a Country in Turmoil
A Risky Business
Imagine visiting a country where a growing segment of the population has trouble finding food – and then finding a means to pay for it once found. Now imagine people with money – or at least those perceived to have money – walking around in the midst of increasingly desperate people.
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Now you have a sense of what life might be like for both professional baseball players and American scouts as they try to seek out that next generation of talent.
If I were a ball player looking for a Winter League right now, Venezuela would not be my choice… particularly in or around Caracas. There’s simply too much risk of kidnapping, robbery, or worse. Even the thought of hiring private security would certainly make it difficult – if not impossible – to concentrate on the reason for being there in the first place.
For scouts, ease of travel is important as they go from one training facility to another. It was already a sometimes tricky and sketchy business. Now it’s simply dangerous.
For Gordon Blakeley, Kylie McDaniel and their staff, it is certainly possible now that some kids may not be able to get with trainers now due to the unrest. It is also possible that some trainers and their camps might simply be inaccessible to the Braves scouts… or any other team’s scouts for that matter.
All of this raises the notion that some kids might be missed and deprived of an opportunity to escape the country with their families and pursue a baseball life. Thus, some victims of this crisis are obvious; others not so much.
Because of excess spending internationally in this signing period, the Atlanta Braves will be barred from spending more than $300,000 on any Latin player (technically, non-North American) for the next pair of signing periods (July 2017-June 2019). This will likely reduce the Braves’ presence in Venezuela and elsewhere… but it does not eliminate that on-going work that needs to remain strong for future considerations.
Those relationships with trainers and other contacts need to be maintained to properly scout young prospects. Yet if youngsters themselves are pressed into family service for survival or are having general nutrition issues from the food shortages, then this will certainly impact their ability to be “found” as future prospects… and their ability to escape the turmoil of their homeland.
Lights at end of the Tunnel?
There is no end game in the Venezuelan crisis at this point. Most countries in the area cannot simply swoop in and help. The United Status is distracted with a Presidential election, and neither the United Nations nor the International Monetary Fund seem motivated to intervene at any level at this point… except to predict 1700% inflation for 2017.
Whether a US government would be inclined to assist is thus a decision that will have to wait until the new year, but might run into opposition no matter who wins the White House. President Maduro reached out to America in 2015 after years of animosity from his predecessor, but there’s no word on whether that relationship has thawed at all.
Venezuelans may thus have to work through this on their own strength – but in the meantime, the sport of baseball and the hope for a professional career for some might be part of the collateral damage of a country on the brink.