Two Venezuelan Major League Players Die in Traffic Accident Caused by Assailants
CARACAS.- Major League Baseball players Luis Valbuena and Jose Castillo, baseball players of the Cardinals of Lara in Venezuelan baseball, died in a traffic accident early this Friday after playing a game in the league.
A stone crossed on the road by assailants was the cause of the accident, according to police reports. The players traveled from Caracas, where they had played a match with Leones de Caracas, to Barquisimeto, to continue with the agenda on Friday.
“We are living a horrible tragedy in the Cardinals of Lara. We lost our players Luis Valbuena and José Castillo in a traffic accident, “the Cardinals of Lara reported on Twitter.
Two other players, Carlos Rivero and Raúl Álvarez, were injured during the overturning caused by an obstacle placed by thieves, a common modus operandi on the roads of Venezuela to force drivers to stop.
After the accident they were stripped of their belongings.
Castillo, 37, holds the record of being among the eight Venezuelan players to connect 1,000 hits in the history of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League (LVBP).
He played in the Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros between 2004 and 2008, as well as walking the Mexican Baseball League (LMB) between 2011 and 2016 with five different teams
While Valbuena, 33, remained for 11 seasons in the Major Leagues. After finishing his contract in 2018 with the Los Angeles Angels of the Major Leagues, he was a free agent.
Cardinals, located at the top of the LVBP classification, was getting ready to play a double match in Barquisimeto on Friday.
“With tears in my eyes and my heart in pieces I do not believe this horrible news, two brothers who go to heaven and two brothers who gave me baseball, today we say goodbye rest in peace brothers,” wrote his teammate in Cardinals Néstor Molina.
Baseball fans and representatives of all sports disciplines flood social networks with expressions of condolences.
“Caracas Baseball Club joins the duel that seizes the family of the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League for the sensitive loss of two of our players. Luis Valbuena and José Castillo. Peace to their souls Our condolences to their families, “wrote Leones de Caracas on Twitter.
The fact recalls the death of the Venezuelan beauty queen Mónica Spear, who was murdered along with her husband in 2014 when he was traveling at night on a highway in Venezuela.
Venezuelans, affected by a severe economic crisis, must deal with a murder rate of 89 per 100,000 inhabitants, 15 times higher than the world average, according to the NGO Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia.
A front office member of Luis Valbuena's Venezuelan winter ball team confirmed the former Astros third baseman was killed in a car accident in Venezuela on Thursday.
Valbuena was 33 https://t.co/cWALLPz3Io
— Chandler Rome (@Chandler_Rome) December 7, 2018
