Venezuela baseball talent pool ‘shrinks’
Food crisis widens
CARACAS, Aug 31, (RTRS): Young baseball players from poor families in Venezuela are not getting the nourishment needed to realize their dream of playing professionally in the United States, as acute food shortages close off one of the few remaining avenues out of poverty in the recession-hit country.
Venezuela is home to superstar players, including Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera and the Houston Astros’ diminutive but mighty second baseman, Jose Altuve.
With a record 76 Venezuelan nationals playing on Major League Baseball (MLB) teams at the start of this season, the country’s agent-operated baseball academies are expected to keep steering high-performing prospects to big league scouts.
But the country’s food shortages are taking a toll, as malnourished kids from low-income families are denied entry to
BASEBALL academies that have become the only way to guarantee the kind of diet needed to build a world-class player.
Agents and scouts say the live-in baseball schools are already drawing from a smaller pool of talent because children from poor families are not strong enough by age 13 to compete for admission against their better-fed peers.
Millions of Venezuelans have been struggling to eat properly in recent years amid triple-digit inflation and acute shortages of staples, including beef, milk and flour. President Nicolas Maduro blames a US-led “economic war” though critics say his policies are the cause of the economic and social mess.
There are about 100 substantial, privately-owned baseball academies in Venezuela, which is MLB’s second-most represented country after the Dominican Republic and well ahead of longtime regional powerhouse, Cuba.
Kids fortunate enough to get into the schools are fed six times a day, learn English, and take classes in anatomy and physiology. They are even tended to by psychologists to ensure they are prepared for when and if they sign with a big league team.
The divide between this kind of development and that of kids too weak to get into the academies is widening. And so is the pressure on parents to get their boys into strong enough shape by age 12 to be granted admission.
She wants Jesus, who has been playing ball since age four, to enter an academy when he is 12 or 13.
It has become a common story in Venezuela’s low-income barrios which have been hardest hit by four years of deep recession in the socialistrun economy.
Surveys conducted last October by Catholic non-profit organization Caritas in poor sectors of Venezuela’s four most populous states found that 48 percent of children younger than five were malnourished. By April of this year, that figure had risen to 56 percent.
Due to the stagnant economy and rampant crime, only four MLB teams — the Chicago Cubs, Tampa Bay Rays, Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers — still operate training facilities in Venezuela, down from 18 clubs in 2000.
The depth of the crisis dawned on him when his players stopped wanting to go home to their families on the weekends, Depablos said.
When a prospect signs with a team at age 16, he then goes to that team’s advanced training center in the Dominican Republic before getting a chance to play in the US minor leagues and hopefully the big leagues.
Lack of food is also bad news for atypical players who have always had a harder time getting recruited, and who now face nutrition problems as well.
The obvious case is Jose Altuve, the reigning American League batting champion who has become the inspirational face of the Houston Astros. Even well fed, he stopped growing at 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 meters) tall.
From the city of Maracay, the base-stealing dynamo grew up so poor he had to bum baseballs from the local minor league team so he could practice with his dad.
At the other end of the spectrum is Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera, who at 6 feet 4 (1.93m), projects the image of the classic slugger he is.
“Everybody wants to sign Miguel Cabrera, but few people were willing to sign Jose Altuve. He was not on the A-list of prospects when he was 15. He did not get special treatment, but he got his nutrition anyway because there was enough food in the country,” said Johan Ocanto, head of the ABAR academy in Caracas, which houses 18 young players.