Some Baseball News from Abroad

Here are some interesting tidbits from the last six weeks about baseball abroad, which I gleaned from myworldofbaseball.com, a funky little baseball blog from someone who apparently has a tremendous amount of free time in which to write about baseball all over the world:

Korean players playing in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) have voted to unionize.  Needless to say, management is not happy about it.

Also, Mexican slugger Karim Garcia (he hit 66 major league homeruns, including 16 in only 197 ABs for the Indians in 2002) will be returning to Korea for another season in the KBO in 2010.  It seems like Karim Garcia is a name that has been around forever, but he’ll be only 34 years old in 2010.

The top three hitters in the top Cuban League (one of the world’s best leagues and probably roughly on a par with the KBO) are Yulieski Gourriel, Alexie Bell and Alfredo Despaigne.  This information is useful if only because the odds are probably pretty good that at least one of the three will eventually defect to gain a shot at playing in MLB for the big money.

Major league pitcher Luis Ayala, a Mexican national, was recently the victim of an attempted kidnapping while playing in the Mexican Winter League, according to ESPN.com.  He called the Mexican equivalent of 911 and the cops showed up in time to chase off the kidnappers, although they found him in handcuffs (was it just a sex-capade gone awry?).  One thing is for certain: if you are a ballplayer making a million bucks a year, it’s probably not a good idea to play your winter ball somewhere rich people are regularly kidnapped, no matter what your home country might be.  Either that, or hire heavily-armed bodyguards.

They apparently play baseball in Moldova. (If you don’t know where Moldova is, I’m not going to tell you — that’s what the internet is for.)

Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez is pitching winter ball in Venezuala.  This really surprises me: if I were the Mets, there’s no way I’d let Rodriguez pitch winter ball given the money they’re paying him.  It’s not like he needs the practice at this point in his career.

The Taiwanese professional league continues to be mired in a gambling scandal involving some of the biggest players in that league.

Claudio Liverziani, a player in Italy’s professional league (yes, Italy has a professional league — they play a 42 game schedule, as they do in Holland’s professional league), was hit with a two-year suspension for testing positive for amphetamines.  At age 34 already, it probably means the end of his professional career.  Too bad, if only because he still had it: he hit .298 with a .482 on-base percentage and a .468 slugging percentage this year.

In a similar note, 30 year old American catcher Matt Tupman is currently playing well for Licey in the Dominican winter league.  He got a cup of coffee from the Royals in 2008, mainly because the Royals are the Royals: he hit poorly in the high minors in both 2008 and 2009.  In early December, MLB announced that Tupman has been suspended for fifty games for a second positive test for a “drug of abuse”.

Since Tupman will have to serve a fifty game suspension upon being signed by any major league organization, it effectively means the end of his career, except to the extent he can hang on by playing in an Independent A league or in Mexico, Korea or Taiwan.  Needless to say, it’s a tough way to have your professional career end.