including one from a baseball game between the Marineros de Carabobo and the Senadores de Caracas of the Liga Mayor de B\u00e9isbol Profesional<\/a>, Venezuela\u2019s pro league. The game came to an abrupt halt, with players and fans running onto the field.<\/p>\nThe LMBP has suspended games until further notice.<\/p>\n
On Opening Day, MLB rosters featured 249 players from across 16 different countries and territories, representing 26.3 percent of all players. Of that group, 60 were Venezuelan, the second largest country represented behind the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the disaster, players across Major League Baseball detailed efforts to make contact with family members who remained in the country. For some, that contact turned into heartbreak.<\/p>\n
San Francisco Giants rookie Victor Bericoto, who was born in Maracay, learned shortly after hitting a walk-off home run Wednesday night that his brother\u2019s girlfriend was among those killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really sad to see what\u2019s going on in my country,\u201d Bericoto told reporters. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing entire families lose their homes, lose loved ones, lose everything that they had. It\u2019s really sad to be so far away and not be able to do anything for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of the time difference, some players, including Detroit Tigers left-hander Emmanuel De Jesus, were already in the process of playing Wednesday night\u2019s late games, leaving them with limited information.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t able to talk to one of my sisters before I left for the game, but thank God everything is good,\u201d De Jesus said. \u201c\u2026 After the game I was able to find out everyone was good.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a memo sent to its clubs, MLB said players would be able to wear a tribute to Venezuela in the form of an embroidered patch on the side of their team-issued caps.<\/p>\n
Because of the quick turnaround time, only Venezuelan players and coaching staff were allowed to wear the embroidered emblem during the Giants and Athletics\u2019 series finale, a total of six people. Venezuelan players and coaches on the Chicago Cubs participated in the tribute, and in Detroit, L\u00f3pez and Astros second baseman Jose Altuve wore the patch.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Thursday\u2019s game, L\u00f3pez said Team Venezuela\u2019s WBC group chat has remained open, with players and staffers supporting each other through Wednesday night into Thursday. The group plans to \u201cput something together\u201d for the country.<\/p>\n
Baseball, L\u00f3pez said, has the power to unify people, which was needed now, in a moment of great crisis. He later added, \u201cThis is the time to help each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel really frustrated that I can\u2019t go to Venezuela right now and help, put my best effort forward for our people,\u201d he said. \u201cI have a job to do. I have to stay here, but I\u2019ll pray.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Andrew Baggarly contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 His heart and mind were more than 1,000 miles away, but Omar L\u00f3pez had a job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":760900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5163,591,85],"class_list":["post-760899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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