Venezuelan Baseball Players: Where Do Their Loyalties Lie?

This is not a political commentary. I have worked very hard to keep politics out of my writing, both here and at my Nationals' website.

That said, there are times when politics and baseball cross paths.

It happened in Japan during World War II and again during the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960's.

And now, it's happening again in Venezuela.

Though he has been president for more than a decade, it's only been in the last four or five years that Americans had even heard of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

Then almost overnight, he became the motor-mouth leader of that small cabal of anti-American cheerleaders.

It seems that no matter what we do, no matter how we act, or react, we just can't please President Chavez.

And that's fine. Little despots in little countries don't concern me very much.

But I am concerned, however, by the damage he can do to the game of baseball.

Baseball, after all, is our national past time, not his.

Venezuela has been a major contributor of Latin American baseball players to Major League Baseball for more than seventy years. Since 1939, 216 Venezuelans have donned a major league uniform.

Since moving to Washington, the Nationals have had six Venezuelans-Endy Chavez, Melvin Dorta, Tony Armas Jr, Wiki Gonzalez, Alex Escobar and current starting catcher Jesus Flores-on their major league roster.

So what might happen when a fiercely patriotic Venezuelan baseball player leaves home to spend nine months a year in a country considered by his president to be an enemy of the state?

Let's say that Nationals' catcher Jesus Flores is a nationalistic Venezuelan (which he may or may not be), and supports Chavez and his anti-American rhetoric. Perhaps he likes the feel of his small nation continually poking a rhetorical stick in the eye of America.

It must be terribly difficult to live and work in the very country that your president attacks as being corrupt and immoral.

Who are these players loyal to? Regardless of how they may feel about their homeland, there is no country that offers more freedoms and more opportunities than the United States.

The average annual income in Venezuela is about $4,000 dollars. The minimum salary for a Major League baseball player is $400,000 dollars.

Money buys loyalty. Or at least it can.

Can Venezuelan baseball players be loyal to both their homeland as well as their adopted home? And if they do feel some sense of loyalty to America and turn their backs on Chavez' rhetoric, will there be repercussions against the players or their families back home?

And what of patriotic American fans in the stands who are growing weary of Hugo Chavez and his anti-American diatribe? Might some take their frustrations out not on Chavez, but on the Venezuelan players, even those wearing the uniform of their favorite team?

Could Jesus Flores get booed solely for being Venezuelan?

I don't have all the answers. Heck, I don't have any of the answers.

I do know, however, that Hugo Chavez isn't about to let up anytime soon, and sooner or later, the bad blood between the two countries is going to take its toll on American baseball, especially if Chavez continues to allow his nation be ports-of-call for Russian war ships.

For all his faults, Fidel Castro understands that politics doesn't belong in baseball.

As much as he dislikes the United States, he seizes on every opportunity for his Cuban National team to come to the United States and play baseball.

And they usually dominate their neighbors to the north.

I hope that Hugo Chavez realizes one day that baseball can be a conduit between the two countries, a way of communicating without all of the rough and reckless and inflamitory language.

Hey Hugo, it's okay this one time to take your cue from Fidel.

Baseball transcends all else.

Even politics.