By Hannah Keyser, CNN
Miami (CNN) — With Team Venezuela leading 6-2 in the seventh inning of their first World Baseball Classic game, a dance party erupted on the concourse behind third base.
A small drumline – one of several in the stands, even for a noon game on a weekday – had attracted a crowd. It didn’t take long for the throng to form a dance circle with a number of eager participants. The concourse became impassable, but no one seemed to mind. Fans of all ages abandoned plans to return to their seats and gave up on wherever they were going, choosing to twerk and shimmy and shout, “Eyyy, Venezuela!” in unison.
The game was in Miami, the epicenter of the largest Venezuelan population in the United States. In the clubhouse, players ate arepas, always a staple of the concession stands here. They faced off against the Netherlands, with a player pool and fanbase populated by Caribbean expats from former Dutch colonies. But the vast majority of the crowd was Venezuelan and came to celebrate their country with auspicious hope, raucous revelry, and, of course, baseball.
The tournament, held every few years as a joint production between MLB and the MLB Players Association, allows players to represent, not the city that hired them, but the home that raised them or their forebears. For Venezuelan players, who make up the second-largest foreign-born population in MLB, it’s a chance to show that even though baseball was a ticket out of their country, it also ties them to it. Just because they left doesn’t mean they don’t love it.
It’s a sentiment shared by many members of the diaspora. And part of what makes the WBC so special is the chance to be surrounded by so many other Venezuelans all exulting in their shared heritage.
“Being together, sharing our culture in the stadium here, and I feel very excited because we feel like we are in Venezuela again,” said Ángela Ramírez, who had traveled from Orlando with her husband and their friends for the game. They have lived in the US for nearly a decade.
“It feels like home,” said Jorge Galicia, who has been in the US for eight years and Miami for four, but still thinks of Venezuela when he references the comfort he found in the stadium this weekend.
He was at the game alone, draped in a Venezuela flag that he repeatedly lent out to his compatriots who asked to borrow it for photos snapped from the centerfield concourse, a field full of Venezuelans winning behind them.
For Galicia, Ramírez and many other Venezuelans living in the states, the approximation of home at a ballpark in Miami is as close as they can get — for now.
Safety concerns have kept many who fled Venezuela from returning. In the stands, some fans FaceTimed friends and family back in Venezuela, whom they may not have seen since they left. Galicia, for instance, was part of the political opposition in the country and came to the US claiming asylum.
“It’s difficult because I cannot see baseball anymore in Venezuela because of all the political situation, but it’s refreshing to have some of that here in the city where I live now,” he said. “I’m waiting for a good moment to return.”
After the capture and removal of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife by the Trump administration, some expats believe that moment is approaching. Or, at least, they hope so. It has made them even more proud to cheer for a team with Venezuela emblazoned across the chest.
“Oh, way more,” Galicia said. “I’m heavily optimistic.”
‘Finally, they did something’
January 3 was Francisco Zambrano’s birthday.
“That was a great day,” he said. It was also the day that Maduro was captured. “So that was a great gift.”
Juan Sánchez, who has been living in the States for 20 years, 15 of which in Miami, was at work when the news broke.
“I was in the middle of my shift, and I just go home and celebrate. Been waiting for this more than 20 years, and now it happens,” he said. “I have to go home and celebrate with my family. It was exciting. It was very exciting.”
All of the Venezuelan fans CNN Sports spoke to in Miami were happy to have Maduro out, but they wavered on what it meant for the future of the country. For now, the Trump administration has thrown its support behind Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president who has assumed the presidency.
“It’s a very difficult problem. There are too many bad people. It’s very complicated,” said Ramírez.
“I think we need to be patient. These processes are slow,” Galicia said. “Of course, I want to see free and fair elections. I’m confident we’re heading there. I don’t know how fast that’s going to be, but I like the things that I’m seeing. I like the changes that we’re seeing.”
Change. That is what has inspired the optimism among the expat Venezuelans. The conditions under Maduro drove many of them to flee a country that they miss terribly. Now, they are hopeful that no matter what the future brings, it will be different.
“We always be having hope that one day it’s going to happen,” said Andrés Pacheco, whose face was painted yellow, blue, and red with white stars across the bridge of his nose like the Venezuelan flag. “And finally, they did something. We don’t know what’s going to happen later. But it’s something.”
Pacheco had traveled all the way from Oklahoma, where he works at a restaurant, to attend the WBC. He watched Team Venezuela when it played exhibition games in West Palm Beach. He was there when the team had a workout day before pool play in Miami. He follows Venezuelan players on MLB teams closely, collecting their baseball cards.
Even when they are playing for American cities, their success redounds on the heritage. But this, the opportunity to see them explicitly representing their shared homeland, was too powerful to pass up.
“Now that they have (the WBC) and they come to Miami, it’s the most amazing thing because I love Venezuela and baseball,” he said.
He plans to attend every game for as long as Venezuela remains in the tournament.
“I’m already emotional when I see them together.”
A touchy situation for Team Venezuela
Omar López, the manager of Team Venezuela, looked around the sparsely attended news conference and asked if he could wait a few minutes before starting to see if more reporters would arrive.
It was a few hours before Venezuela’s second game of the group stage and multiple days of manager media availability had sapped some of the urgency out of his appearances. But López had something he needed the world to hear.
“I want to say something before we start. I hope that you can pass this on to journalists from other countries,” he began solemnly, speaking in Spanish. “My name is Omar López. I have been working in baseball for 29 years. I don’t work in politics. I didn’t go to college to study diplomacy or any other career related to politics. I am not supporting anybody.
“I support and I am connected with my family and nobody else. So I ask the Venezuelans, the Venezuelan community, please don’t ask me more questions about the political situation of my country, of our country. And please, please share this with the other journalists.”
The entreaty continued from there. He referenced a question from a couple days prior when he had been asked about the “very unusual political times” in Venezuela. He had deflected vociferously – insisting “I’m not here to talk about anything about political situations around the world, around my country” – but evidently that had not been a definitive enough distancing from the issue.
At the risk of undermining López’s very emphatic testimony – that he didn’t know about politics, doesn’t really want to think about it and definitely didn’t want to talk about it – the opening statement belied an obvious truth: It seemed to be something that, in fact, he had given quite a bit of consideration. All of that consideration led to him deliberately deciding to stay away from taking any particular position.
It was a stark, but unsurprising, contrast to the unanimity of the fans’ eagerness to celebrate Maduro’s ouster. If their enthusiasm extends to the dugout, it’s hard to tell.
Salvador Pérez, the team’s captain, a 14-year MLB veteran who is now playing in his fourth WBC – said he doesn’t pay attention to the outside noise, citing the fans who just want to see their team win.
“Everybody knows how hard it is,” he conceded obliquely in Spanish. “I can control what I can control. The rest, God has control of that.”
Whether it’s true or not that Pérez is able to ignore the upheaval in his home country, it would be difficult to get him to say otherwise. Venezuelan players and coaches are incredibly cautious commenting publicly on politics of the country – to do so could draw additional attention to themselves. Already, their rich, widely reported salaries make them and their loved ones targets.
Big leaguers playing in winter leagues back in Venezuela have historically brought bodyguards with them to the ballpark. Relatives – mothers, sons and brothers – have been kidnapped and held for ransom. In 2011, big leaguer Wilson Ramos himself was abducted and held for two days in a targeted kidnapping before being rescued.
And in 2017, two-time MVP and 12-time All-Star Miguel Cabrera posted a series of videos on Instagram passionately decrying the corruption and dangers of his home country. He referenced the death threats he received, the bribes he paid to ensure the safety of his family, and aligned himself with the resistance to Maduro’s regime.
And yet, nearly a decade later and now a coach on Team Venezuela, Cabrera was heckled as a “Chavista,” a supporter of Maduro’s ideological predecessor Hugo Chávez at the game Saturday night in Miami.
‘Maybe, this is the year’
It wasn’t the only politically tinged cheer in the stadium.
“We’re going to say today, in the baseball game, ‘¡Maduro, c****a de tu madre!’” Rachel Pérez said shortly before Saturday’s game.
Her son, Victor, offers a rough translation: “It’s like, ‘F**k you, Maduro.’”
They left Venezuela when Victor was a teenager studying law. His parents were worried for his safety and he saw no future there. Now, he misses Venezuela every day.
“I mean, I love the US,” Victor said. “But definitely my home country is Venezuela, so I want to be there.”
But at least for now, they are surrounded by people who can understand that dichotomy because they feel it too. Heading into Wednesday night’s massive showdown against the Dominican Republic, the Venezuelans are undefeated and looking like one of the top teams in the tournament.
They’re not quite favored – realistically ranking behind Team USA, Team Japan, and their Miami rivals, the Dominican Republic – but Team Venezuela is a serious contender. If they win it all, it would be the first time since the WBC debuted in 2006.
“Maybe, this is the year cause things are getting better for us,” Galicia said.
Pacheco tried to imagine what that would feel like.
”Oh my God, I don’t even know because I have been waiting for it,” he said. “The same way we’ve been waiting for the political (situation to improve), we’ve been waiting for this.”
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