FOR VENEZUELANS, MIAMI IS SANCTUARY
Turmoil at home pushes players to settle down in city
Chicago White Sox AllStar Avisail Garcia and his wife, Anakarina, have a 3-year-old daughter and a son on the way in a month. They desperately want to raise the kids in their native Venezuela but are convinced the country’s political and economic turmoil rules out that option.
So the outfielder’s first All- Star Game invite for Tuesday’s game at Marlins Park will represent not just a confirmation of his emergence as one of the game’s top players but also a visit to the city he soon plans to make home.
Garcia has been house hunting in Miami and intends to join a growing legion of his major league countrymen who have moved to South Florida — in many cases almost against their will — to find the peace and stability unavailable in their homeland, which has been ravaged by rampant crime and shortages of essential goods, leading to violent clashes between citizens and government forces.
“I don’t want to leave Venezuela. I wish I could live in my country. It’s the best country in the world,” said Garcia, who is enjoying a breakout season at 26. “It’s a shame that we Venezuelans can’t live in that beautiful land because we have such a bad, corrupt government.”
The increasing unrest and deteriorating conditions in Venezuela under embattled President Nicolas Maduro — whose supporters stormed congress and attacked lawmakers with sticks and metal bars during an Independ- ence Day session Wednesday — has led to a mass exodus from the South American nation.
An estimated 2 million Venezuelans have fled the country in the last 18 years, a migratory movement that roughly coincided with the ascent to power of socialist president Hugo Chavez and has picked up considerably under his successor, Maduro.
Data from the 2013 census indicate more than 40% of Venezuelans who moved to the USA settled in Florida, with the Miami-area municipalities of Doral and Weston — sometimes jokingly called Westonzuela — among the favorite destinations.
Major league ballplayers are fortunate enough to possess the upward mobility to make such a move an option.
“Anybody who has a chance to move will do so for the safety of their family,” Garcia said. “Most people who can emigrate, not just ballplayers, are doing so to seek a better future, because in Venezuela sadly we don’t have a future.”
With 77 Venezuelans on opening-day rosters, the country pro- duces the second-largest number of foreign-born player in the majors, after the Dominican Republic. Though there are no precise figures for how many big-leaguers have made South Florida home, conversations with players and anecdotal evidence suggest the numbers have grown significantly.
They include All-Star catcher Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals; Colorado Rockies outfielder Gerardo Parra and pitcher Jairo Diaz; Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Gregor Blanco; New York Mets infielder Asdrubal Cabrera and Minnesota Twins infielder Ehire Adrianza, among others. Two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera — likely the greatest player Venezuela has produced — also has made his home in Miami from the time he played for the Marlins.
“If I start naming all the Venezuelan players in that area, I would tire you out,” said Adrianza, who has a house in the southwestern suburb of Kendall.
Venezuelan players are nearly unanimous in their reasons for picking South Florida as the place to set roots: proximity to their homeland (the flight from Miami to the Venezuelan capital of Caracas takes three hours), tropical weather and a Latin vibe that makes them comfortable.
“We don’t like to go to cold cities like New York or Seattle. We seek warm weather because that’s what we’re used to,” said Houston Astros All-Star Jose Altuve, who has settled in his team’s home city but couldn’t help but notice all the Venezuelan restaurants when the Astros visited the Marlins in May. “I played there recently, and you feel like you’re at home.”
Despite the familiar feel, the decision to uproot can be agonizing, because it means leaving behind relatives they will see only occasionally and who are left behind in the strife players and their families are escaping.
Blanco said he and his wife debated it extensively before moving to Doral with their two kids. Diaz said his wife convinced him it was time to go, and the arrival of their daughter 11 months ago validated that notion. They also live in Doral now.
In many instances, the presence of kids became the decisive factors in Venezuelan players opting to abandon their homeland.
“I did it in large part for my daughter, who’s 4,” Adrianza said. “You always think about your kids. You can go back home to Venezuela and make do, but it’s different for a 4-year-old, with the scarcity of necessities and medicines. You don’t want to take that risk.”
Besides the chance to bond over shared experiences in their adopted countries, Venezuelan players based in the Miami area have benefited from having their peers nearby to work out together in the offseason.
Parra, who was having a resurgent season with a .318 batting average until a quadriceps strain sidelined him for a month, said he trains with a group of 12-15 players that includes countrymen Willson Contreras, Felix Hernandez, Jose Peraza, Bruce Rondon and Hernan Perez. Parra also employs the same local hitting coach as Cabrera.
And yet, like Garcia, Perez and several other of their compatriots, he’d happily give up those conveniences to live a peaceful existence in his native land.
“There were a lot of factors involved, and all Venezuelans know what they’re about,” Parra, the father of two, said of moving to Miami two years ago. “But our desire is to return and live in Venezuela.”