AGUIRRE, Venezuela (AP) – Moving day is just around the corner and trainer Emilio Carrasquel is inspecting baseball bats and loading unused jerseys into boxes making sure nothing has gone missing.
For the past 15 years, this small mountain town a four-hour drive from the capital has been the Venezuelan home of the Seattle Mariners and the testing ground for a bevy of homegrown big league talents, including Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez.
But this week came word that the team’s operations here are coming to an abrupt end, the latest in a string of 16 major league teams that have abandoned Venezuela in the past decade as a result of economic turmoil, rampant crime and mounting tensions with the United States.
On April 30, the facility in an alpine setting resembling a Spanish colonial hacienda will close its doors for good and its roster of some 30 teenage prospects taken to a newly built academy in the Dominican Republic.
“The news definitely caused an impact – we didn’t think this would happen from one day to the next,” said Carrasquel, head of the Mariners’ operations in Venezuela. “But the decision was made and we need to act on it.”