Venezuela and Puerto Rico headline a year of crises

Carlos Correa’s locker shades to left-center in the Astros’ clubhouse at Minute Maid Park. Next to him are José Altuve and Marwin González. A couple of spaces away, Yuli Gurriel and Alex Bregman, who speaks Spanish. A most impressive Latin corner.

If you wanted to know what this team was thinking during its stretch run to glory and its first World Series championship, this was the place to stand and ponder.

Pinned to Correa’s, Altuve’s and González’s lockers were images depicting the devastation of hurricanes Harvey and María, the two monster storms that ravaged Houston and Puerto Rico, respectively, near the end of the regular season.

“It started with the flooding in Houston,” Correa said in Spanish to La Vida Baseball. “We pinned the photos there to inspire us to stay strong and give people joy. I think that was important for us to draw strength from [Harvey] and from what happened in Puerto Rico, and it served as motivation for us.”

Real Life

There was no way around it, 2017 was the year of crises, when real-life events and Mother Nature combined to deliver savage blows and puncture the protective cocoon of professional athletes.

Hyperinflation, rampant crime, food and medicine shortages, street demonstrations, and the threat of kidnappings and death all weighed heavily on the minds of Venezuelan ballplayers in the major leagues.

Historic floods caused by Harvey killed 90 people in the United States and inflicted nearly $180 billion in damages while disrupting the lives of the Astros and the residents of Houston and southern Texas.

María flattened Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 with high-end Category 4 winds, leaving more than 3 million people without power and water as players from the island scrambled for days to connect with family and friends while figuring out how best to send relief aid.

Parallel events

Which is why, while reflecting on the choices for our first annual La Vida Baseball Story of the Year Award, we decided that you couldn’t separate the political crisis in Venezuela from the natural disasters in the States and the Caribbean.

Think about it: These parallel events affected a significant number of major leaguers. Last season, Venezuela sent 110 to the Big Show, the country’s largest number in history.

Puerto Rico delivered another 28, not counting those born on the mainland, players like the Mets’ Nuyorican catcher T.J. Rivera; the Rockies’ outstanding third baseman Nolan Arenado, of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent; and the World Series MVP, centerfielder George Springer, who’s Panamanian and Puerto Rican.

These crises were the unspoken stories of the season. While Altuve was marching to his fourth straight 200-hit season, third batting title and first American League MVP award, he and fellow countryman González spent the mornings and afternoons scouring social media for news and updates about family and friends back home in Venezuela.

While the Astros were snapping out of an August swoon with a strong September push, Correa — together with fellow boricuas Carlos Beltrán and coach Álex Cora (now the Red Sox’s new manager) — were working phones, raising money, arranging private relief flights, and getting friends and relatives off the island.

And if for Altuve and Correa the moment was a source of strength and inspiration, for others it most certainly was a distraction, if not an outright disruption. It might not be a coincidence that Venezuelan Miguel “Miggy” Cabrera — a Triple Crown winner, two-time MVP and four-time batting champ — suffered the worst season of his stellar 15-year career, averaging barely .249 with a career-low 60 RBI.

He acknowledged through a series of Instagram posts just before the All-Star break that he had paid protection money — vacunas — for his family.

He later admitted to La Vida Baseball in August that he was having troubling focusing on the field, saying, “Every inning, I think about what’s happening in Venezuela. It makes me sad.”

MLB’s great concern

In the long term, the Venezuelan crisis and Puerto Rico’s uncertain recovery due to a separate $74 billion debt crisis are of great concern to Major League Baseball because they could severely weaken the infrastructure of two major sources of Latin American talent.

In May, La Vida Baseball reported that the number of academies run by MLB clubs in Venezuela had declined from 22 to four since 2000. On top of that, the Venezuelan Summer League closed its doors last year, while the winter league needed a $10 million cash infusion from the government of President Nicolás Maduro to operate this year.

Venezuelans are leaving their country by the tens of thousands, many to Florida. So are Puerto Ricans, many of whom lost their homes, jobs and the comforting routines of daily life since Hurricane María hit 11 weeks ago. According to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, more than 200,000 people from Borinquen have already landed at airports from in Miami, Orlando and Tampa since Oct. 3.

In an attempt to provide a dose of normalcy, the Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League has vowed to hold an abbreviated season in January, playing day games and weekend double-headers.

Yet in too many places, neighborhoods still lack power. As of Monday, the island’s still flickering power grid had recovered only 68 percent capacity. Some economists are predicting that Puerto Rico won’t recover fully until 2033, if projections are to be believed.

Meanwhile, the crisis in Venezuela — which cost more than 160 lives this summer — threatens to spiral out of control. Since late July, the black market rate for the U.S. dollar has rocketed from 10,000 to more than 108,000 Bolivars.

And though the street demonstrations have dissipated, Maduro is taking advantage of an opposition that is deeply divided over objectives and strategy, and he is going forward with his constituent assembly. This week, during closed-door negotiations being held in the Dominican Republic, his government also threatened to suspend next year’s presidential elections unless the United States removed sanctions against top-ranking Venezuelan officials and financial institutions.

In both Venezuela and Puerto Rico, baseball is life. For now, both will surely continue sending players to the major leagues. But unless the situation improves in both places, 2017 could become a seminal moment in history.

The story of the year, with no ending.

Featured Image: Anadolu Agency / Getty Images