Will update the Wilson Ramos situation in this space throughout the day. The Nationals’ 24-year-old catcher was abducted on Wednesday evening in front of his mother’s home in the Santa Inés neighborhood of Valencia, Venezuela. According to sources, the Ramos family has yet to hear from the kidnappers.
The Venezuelan television channel Globovisión, quoting Tarek El Aissami, Venezuela’s Minister of Interior and Justice, reports that the van driven by the kidnappers has been found abandoned near the town of Bejuma, about 31 miles west of Valencia.
El Aissami’s department later issued a press release in Spanish on its official web site that translated says a team of “high level” criminal investigators known as the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigative Body (CICPC) are in Valencia beginning an investigation to find Ramos and apprehend his kidnappers. Police sources also confirmed to the publication El Periodiquito that they have sketches of two of the kidnappers.
The Nationals and Major League Baseball issued a joint statement at about 12:30 p.m. on Thursday. It read:
“Our foremost concern is with Wilson Ramos and his family and our thoughts are with them at this time. Major League Baseball’s Department of Investigations is working with the appropriate authorities on this matter. Both Major League Baseball and the Washington Nationals have been instructed to make no further comment.”
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League will not shut down while the Ramos investigation continues, according to league president José Grasso Vecchio.
“To suspend games now is to turn off the lights and this does nothing good for Wilson Ramos,” Grasso Vecchio told reporters in Venezuela.
Ramos’ team, Tigres de Aragua, played its scheduled road game on Wednesday night at the Bravos de Margarita. The two teams are scheduled to play again tonight. The VPBL has issued a statement in Spanish, which when translated read in part:
“The Venezuelan Professional Baseball League condemns and deplores the kidnapping of…Wilson Ramos, a fact that has shocked the country, especially those who follow Venezuelan baseball. We also hope that this event has a favorable outcome for Wilson Ramos and his family and make our supplications to the Almighty and call upon the authorities, so strong, to make all necessary inquiries, leading to a solution as quickly as possible. We conform to the clamor of society in general and baseball segment, which in Venezuela is the majority, so that incidents of this nature and criminal events of any kind do not occur more in the country.”
Follow me on Twitter @bmcnally14
