Venezuelan fans endure sacrifices to ‘Play Ball’ amid crisis

CARACAS, Venezuela — For 10 years, ever since they bonded over baseball at work, Franlet Bencomo and Elbert Albarran haven’t missed an opening day game together.

This year, however, they left their kids behind and ate a big breakfast before heading out to watch their beloved Caracas Lions because a hot dog inside the stadium costs more than 10 percent of the roughly $30 each makes a month at their minimum-wage jobs.

“Now we have to eat beforehand, watch the game and go straight home,” said Bencomo, in line for tickets six hours before the start of Friday’s season opener. “There’s no other way.”

Throughout Venezuela, as winter league play gets under way, fans are having to make similar sacrifices to feed their passion for “pelota” — the word for ball that’s used to describe the national pastime.

Hyperinflation has pulverized incomes while putting ticket prices out of reach. Others are avoiding the ballpark for fear of getting mugged or because they don’t know how they’ll get home amid a nationwide transportation crisis. In response, more daytime games are being played.

Venezuela’s eight professional teams are struggling. For the second straight year, state-run oil company PDVSA had to step in with a $12 million lifeline to pay for everything from imported baseballs to the salaries of the seven foreign-born players — most of them minor league prospects from the U.S. — on each team’s roster.