Tusa: Not even baseball escapes the maze of Venezuelan political crisis
From SABR member Alfonso Tusa at The Hardball Times on April 3, 2019:
The facts of January 23, 2019, permeated through every field into the Venezuelan reality. Even the beginning of the Venezuelan Winter League of Professional Baseball’s final series between Leones del Caracas and Cardenales de Lara, was affected when the Venezuelan National Assembly leader, Juan Guaido, took an informal oath and declared himself the country’s acting president just hours after deeming the administration of Nicolas Maduro illegitimate because of alleged irregularities in the 2018 elections.
This generated retaliation against the National Assembly and the citizens who joined the protests supporting Guaido’s pronouncement. There were reportedly threats from high-ranking personnel in the regime against people in the management department of a team participating in the final series, because they proposed to postpone the second game due to the political unrest. Some ballplayers received threats from violent groups for joining the proposal to not play that day. These are some of the testimonies of players, journalists, and coaches.
Read the full article here: https://tht.fangraphs.com/not-even-baseball-escapes-from-the-maze-of-a-political-crisis/
Originally published: April 5, 2019. Last Updated: April 5, 2019.