Baseball Was “Berry, Berry Good” to Luis Valbuena—Until it Got Him Killed
Most people have heard the old SNL catchphrase of Chico Escuela, a former Cubs All-Star brought to life by Garrett Morris back in the late 1970s. Sammy Sosa used to say it to reporters, as proof that success on the baseball diamond could bring impoverished kids to a life they could only dream about.
The recent death of Luis Valbuena on a road in Venezuela reminded me of Garrett Morris’ deliberately broken English. Over the course of a playing career that spanned 11 seasons and took him from the American League to the National League and then back again, Luis Valbuena traveled the country and played a child’s game in front of millions of paying customers. And he was well-compensated for his efforts, earning just shy of $29 million over the course of his career.
That’s some life-changing money right there. I’ll never make $29 million in my lifetime, and few, if any, reading this will, either. Baseball salaries are in line with what the market will bear, and the odds of making it to the majors—even for just a single plate appearance–are mind-numbingly small. But Valbuena beat those odds, and the payoff had to be very nice, indeed.
But the Los Angeles Angels—who had seen enough of what Valbuena could (or could not) do, especially at the plate—cut him loose on August 7. As he closed in in his 33rd birthday, Valbuena had to realize his career as a ballplayer was on a downward arc. The career window for any professional athlete is exceedingly short, and it’s even worse for someone below the fabled Mendoza line. But what else was he going to do besides play baseball?
So, Luis Valbuena went back home to play baseball in Venezuela. It wasn’t the major leagues, to be sure, but it was still the game that had carried him all around the USA, where parking alone can cost what might seem like a lot of money to people in desperate poverty. Whether Valbuena realized it or not—and it seems likely to believe he did—his success in America had made him a marked man.
Venezuela is a rich source of talent for MLB—only the United States and the Dominican Republic have more natives on MLB rosters—but it also has turmoil the likes of which most Americans can’t imagine. High inflation, economic sanctions and social unrest have put the entire nation in a state of unrest. But even though it’s in this hemisphere, Venezuela seems so very far away. It must have once felt that way to Luis Valbuena, too.
So as Valbuena was driving in a car with two other players on a dark highway heading from Caracas towards the town of Barquisimeto, they encounted a heavy object in the road. The presence of that heavy object was no accident, either. Men who had neither the physical skills nor the incredible luck of Luis Valbuena had set a trap, maybe not for him specifically, but for anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s a terrible shame that Luis Valbuena and his teammate Jose Castillo met such an untimely end on a dark road, and at the hands of such an awful group of bandits. My thoughts and best wishes are with his family and associates at this difficult time.
