Caracas Chronicles

I’ve chronicled the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League here at Caracas Chronicles since 2019. When I submitted last year’s piece, I thought perhaps everything had already been written on this subject, so I shouldn’t write anything at all. 

Then, the proverbial curveball. It turns out the events of the past few months have made this the most difficult one to write.

Even before the season started, a very close baseball friend was jailed by the authorities. I can’t say his name because I don’t want to harm him more than what he has already been. His case barely made the papers. He was one of the thousands of numbers detained after July’s presidential elections. But let’s circle back to this a little later.   

After the elections and the fallout that followed, it’s kind of mindblowing that there’s baseball at all. 

I’m sure the baseball season is partially used by the government to transmit a sense of normality. At the same time, I can’t blame anyone for taking part in the season at any level. It’s a most needed distraction. A beautiful song, a crowd’s lullaby.

Besides, a lot of people benefit from it. Players and owners, broadcasters and stadium employees, the Venezuelan Baseball League is as professional as can be, even more so considering everything revolving around. 

Maracaibo has one of the best crowd averages of the league, and the numbers in general are solid. Barquisimeto, Valencia have solid crowds too. Even Margarita saw the return of Bravos to the island after four years, following the recovery of Nueva Esparta Stadium. Baseball life seems to be pretty normal, healthy even; as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on outside. 

Every ballgame is broadcast, sometimes by more than one channel. The whole season is also streamed all around the world, costing less than 25 dollars for the entire package. Nine stadiums in seven different cities were used during the regular season. 

All of this translates into much needed (direct and indirect) jobs for thousands of people, not to mention entertainment for millions visiting the parks or watching at home.     

The State of the Venezuelan Baseball Union is strong.

The boys are back in town

Since I started writing these annual reports for CC, my hometown Águilas del Zulia had performed poorly. Good thing I’m not an idiotic superstitious sports fan. But, it just so happens that this season they’ve been awesome. They are still in competition during the postseason at the time of writing this, along with Cardenales de Lara, Navegantes del Magallanes, Bravos de Margarita and Tigres de Aragua. It’s very uncommon to have no baseball being played in Caracas in January, but Leones and Tiburones did not make the cut.

To me, going to the ballgame continues to be one of the best human experiences we’ve managed to create. Last year I was living in Caracas and my chronicle focused on the capital. This year I returned to Maracaibo. This season has been a big bowl of fun in this suffering city. 

One of the perks of being a writer with a press pass is that you get to move and sit almost wherever you want around the park. In the Luis Aparicio Stadium, if you sit around third base, an evening breeze coming from the east kisses the ballpark, cooling the ring of lights that holds this lovely pastoral game.      

Silence is health

Just like in the 70’s Argentina, right now in Venezuela silence is health. Anything you say at any venue or format could make you disappear, and the chasm that comes with it changes trajectories. Even incidental information you hold in your phone or casual virtual indirect manifestations will get you in a whole lot of trouble. 

It’s hard to imagine how the family of my detained friend kept running a business with their youngest son lost. It had to be a nightmare. I kept in constant contact with them and they were stressed out of their minds and resigned, asking for “thoughts and prayers”. It seems thoughts and prayers are basically the law firm to every political prisoner in the country. This weak and often empty phrase showcases how helpless we are individually against a monstrous regime.  

That’s more or less what I can say about my friend. He was released before Christmas after five months detained at SEBIN’s headquarters and a thousand rumors in between. Going to the stadium (which I did a couple of times) knowing he was enduring the ordeal of a lifetime was weird to say the least. 

I’ve heard that by this time, every Venezuelan has someone abroad, due to mass migration. I wonder how many of us know someone that has been imprisoned for political reasons. I’m willing to bet the number is high. 

I directly know three people that have lived through this, none of them related to my work as a writer. Just regular folks who at some point said something or were somewhere that had their lives endangered and changed forever. 

Planning for life after death

With my buddy out (I wouldn’t dare to say safely out), it is still hard to concentrate on baseball. Looking at the postseason schedule, just like I did with my father when I was a kid, I’m fantasizing about what Aguilas can do along the way. 

But this is not my childhood anymore. January 10th is looming on the horizon, and no one can say for certain that things are going to run smoothly, whatever that means. The Round Robin is supposed to go on until January 17 (and the Final after that date). In fact, Águilas are supposed to play this Friday (the 10th of January) in Valencia. It’s hard to fathom. Part of my brain is thinking “there’s no way they’ll be games that day or after that”, while another part of me is thinking “Who’s pitching on Friday? I hope we win”.

The general consensus if you ask people in the ballpark is that nothing is going to happen. Several answers—all off the record—were along the lines “nothing is going to happen. The season will go on as usual… I really hope I’m wrong”. The general sentiment of fans and sports journalists alike is that they will gladly have no baseball, if it means change is achieved. One colleague even said “I don’t care if Águilas are in first place” in that very characteristic maracuchean accent.   

If I was a betting man, I would bet things won’t be smooth for the powers that be, and they will certainly not be smooth for the cries of freedom. 

As for baseball, to me it’s the most important of the non-important things in the world. I must confess the callous side in me is thinking: “just when Aguilas are playing great baseball and have a real shot, the whole damn country is about to catch on fire… great!!!”