On March 8, 2018, ABC News said that as Venezuela’s economic crisis worsens, rising numbers are fleeing in a burgeoning refugee crisis that is drawing alarm across Latin America. Independent groups estimate that as many as three million to four million Venezuelans have abandoned their homeland in recent years, with several hundred thousand departing in 2017 alone.

Many of those migrants are arriving by foot in Colombia and landing in the Andean nation’s emergency rooms with urgent medical conditions that Venezuelan hospitals can no longer treat.

After the Dominican Republic, Venezuela has the most foreign-born players in the Major Leagues. In the past, I have spoken with players from Venezuela that told me how hard is to really concentrate on a game of baseball, which is their job and what they do, because of what has been happening in their motherland. The majority of them are disgusted, and some if you said you want to talk about it, they roll their eyes and tell you, we better not, because it is not pretty.

For years now, the Venezuelan government has followed the mold of that of Cuba. When Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba were alive, they were great friends and allies. Castro would visit Venezuela and Chavez would visit Cuba. The same political philosophy is shared by both governments.

According to the Colombian Red Cross, about 35,000 Venezuelans enter the country at the Simon Bolivar International Bridge each day.  Most of those dozens of thousands are entering by foot, and most of them to find food and work, The Colombian Red Cross also revealed that many arrive into their country after fainting on the journey, because they had nothing to eat.

News from Latin America usually does not make headline news here in the United States, but the current situation in Venezuela is getting into the alarming stages, and soon I am sure you will see and read more of that situation. Extremely sad what has happened in Venezuela.

Venezuelan oil production is collapsing, as the country sinks deeper into debt. For a long time, Venezuela was not only the biggest petroleum producers in Latin America, but also one of the top producers in the world.

I feel for all the Venezuelan players in Spring Training right now. During the last few years, I met a few that have sold their homes in Venezuela and moved to the United States. Can you blame them?

I hope and pray that some solution can come to the country and the good people of Venezuela whom right now are in a spiral. Maracaibo, where the great Luis Aparicio (Hall of Fame shortstop) was born, is one of the richest oil producing areas in the world.

Lake Maracaibo is one of the world’s richest and most centrally located petroleum-producing regions.

A recent report by Reuters said that Venezuelans reporting losing on average 11 kilograms (24 lbs) during the year 2017. We have seen in photographs and on Spanish-speaking television channels that people in Caracas go into trash cans searching for food. Caracas used to be one of the great cities in Latin America with a population of two million.