Latino Ballers is my half-ass attempt to infuse some culture into this blogosphere.  Today's post is on The Venezuelans in MLB:

We won't spend too much time on the history of Venezuelans in baseball, but they actually have as great a legacy as any other ethnic group - Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Japanese - whatever.  The first Venezuelan in MLB was Alejandro Carrasquel, who made his debut in 1939.  

Later stars include Luis Aparicio.  You may not know the name, but Luis was the first South American to make the Hall of Fame.  A star shortstop, he won 9 Gold Gloves from 1956-1973, lead the AL in stolen bases 9 years in a row, and was a 10-time All Star.  When he retired, he held the record for most games played at SS, most assists, and most double plays.  He was named one of Top 100 players of the century by MLB.

Cesar Tovar was born in Caracas (the capital, yo), and is a favorite of mine.  He's known as "Mr. Versatilty".  The dude was an infielder/outfielder who occasionally pitched or catched.   He's one of four players in MLB history who have played every position in one game (9/22/68). 

Tovar is also the all-time leader in breaking up no-hitter attempts, with 5.  He is currently hated by the following pitchers: Barry Moore, Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally, Dick Bosman, and Catfish Hunter. 

Tovar was one hell of a competitive player; according to an Sport magazine poll of major leaguers in 1971, he finished just behind Pete Rose as "most competitive player" (tied with Bob Gibson and Frank Robinson). 

Dave Concepcion is best known as the All-Star shortstop of the Big Reds Machine of the 70's; Ozzie Guillen is best known as the fiery All-Star Gold shortstop of the White Sox, who managed them to their first World Series win in over 80 years in 2005; and Andres Galarraga is the slamming home run hitting Big Cat.  The "Big Cat" gets the second best nickname award for a Venezuelan, behind Richard "El Guapo" Garces, who was anything but Guapo.  

Now, let's get to some of the still active Venezuelans:

The last of the Venezuelan shortstops might be Omar Vizquel, who is still active even though he made his debut in the 80's.  The future hall of famer has won 11 Golden Gloves at SS.  He also had that awesome feud with former teammate Jose Mesa.  

Basically, they were friends, but then Omar dissed Joe Table in his 2002 autobiography (Omar has an autobiography?!?), pretty much blaming him for the Game 7 loss to the Marlins.  Which, understandably, pissed Jose off, and so Joe Table vowed he would hit Omar every time he pitched to him from then on.  He got that opportunity in June 2002, and nailed Omar with a pitch.  They didn't fail off again until 2006, when Jose once again nailed Omar.  However, they faced off three more times in 2006 after that, and Mesa managed to control his anger and not hit Vizquel.

Ugueth Urtain Urbina (Triple U) is technically not in the majors right now.  He's in jail in Venezuela, serving a 14-year sentence for attempted murder.  That stems from an incident that occured on his farm in 2005, in which he attack five workers of his with a machette, and at one point pour gasoline on them and threatened to set them a blaze.  Or tried to, I forget.  Anyway, my favorite part of this incident is that in addition to the attempted murder charge, he also got charged with "violating a prohibition against taking justice into his own hands", which seems pretty redundant, Venezuela.  The rule of law usually suffices, Caracas.

Edgardo Alfonzo - sucks.

Roger Cedano - sucks.

Alex Escobar - sucks. 

Conclusion: New York Mets should fire their scouting director in South America, promote their Dominican scouts.

The Yankees have a few Venezuelans of their own: Miguel Cairo and All-Star Bobby Abreu. 

And we'll take a break right here.  Our next post will examine why SML firmly believes that a Venezuelan will win a Cy Young or MVP in every season from 2006 on....

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