OT: MLBers Yordano Ventura, Andy Marte killed in separate car accidents
The link to MLB's Twitter on Ventura:
https://twitter.com/MLB/status/823209194295656448/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc…
Andy Marte:
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/214108460/former-major-leaguer-andy-marte…
I did not realize that Marte was no longer in the majors.
January 22nd, 2017 at 12:26 PM ^
January has been an awful month. RIP to these two young souls.
January 22nd, 2017 at 12:45 PM ^
Sorry for your loss. Wish you peace.
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January 23rd, 2017 at 9:28 AM ^
What the hell kind of person downvotes this?
January 22nd, 2017 at 12:33 PM ^
Even for all the MLB'rs that the Dominican produces, it has to be some kind of astronomical odds for this to happen to two players on the same day.
Spooky.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:17 PM ^
Very sad.
January 22nd, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^
flat out horrible news and prayers go out to both families...
January 22nd, 2017 at 12:50 PM ^
my company is providing training for the Twins and Phillies prospect academies in the DR. It's quite the tightknit community. Condolences to these young men's family and friends.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:00 PM ^
Does anyone have any knowledge on the driving conditions in the Dominican. Over the years I know there have been several of these incidents involving high-level athletes. Is it coincidence, or is there a bigger problem?
Regardless, two more unfortunate losses for the baseball community. Thoughts to the families.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:15 PM ^
still in the bigs? Never heard of either of them. Streatching the OT definition a bit. Maybe time to bring Najee rumors back......
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:21 PM ^
Ventura was 25 and was considered a huge building block for Kansas City Royals future. At one point, people viewed him as a potential ace. He has had some struggles, but also had some good seasons. Many people on this board are huge Tigers fans, and this certainitly effects them, with KC being a divisional rival.
January 22nd, 2017 at 9:20 PM ^
You didn't even have to respond to that nonsense.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:28 PM ^
if you've never heard of Ventura. He had a big arm and was the starter for game 6 of the 2015 ALCS which the Royals won and went to the World Series. Also, Ventura was notable for the amount of hit batters/fights he started. Sometimes I wondered if he was really concerned with strikeouts as opposed to showing batters he'd throw at anyone, anytime. RIP.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:46 PM ^
now, he did walk 5, and he also was staked to a big lead as the Royals put up a 7-spot in the bottom of the 2nd.
But, that was a fairly big performance from Ventura in a must-win game. Would have been interesting if Ventura pitched Game 7 instead of Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie wasn't very good at all, SF got an early lead, and Madison Bumgarner took it all the way home after entering in the 4th.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:50 PM ^
Instead of looking like a complete scumbag.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:39 PM ^
So I did a little digging and found this interesting article. It claims that the DR has the world's second most dangerous roads in the world. As of 2014, there was a 3% chance of a MLB player from the DR being killed in a car crash each year.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2014/10/road-safety-dominican-republic
January 22nd, 2017 at 3:21 PM ^
Driving in the Dominican is surreal. The reason there are so many deaths is the the people there "carpool" by driving in the back of open trucks. It's nothing to see 20-30 people in the back of one; in many cases with their legs dangling off the side onto the open road. It's easy to see why one intersection accident involving one of these trucks could cause massive loss of life.
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January 22nd, 2017 at 1:40 PM ^
They are reporting both as under the influence
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January 23rd, 2017 at 8:27 AM ^
Now they're reporting that no alcohol was involved in Ventura's accident.
No seat belt, thick fog, poor road conditions instead.
January 22nd, 2017 at 2:03 PM ^
Dominican driving is wild. My wife and I lived there for a year and were blown away at first. We bought a car eventually and assimilated completely to the style. Lots of drinking and driving and not a lot of enforcement of driving laws. The highway at least one of these guys was on is a private toll road heading north out of Santo Domingo to the more secluded northern beach towns. Beautiful area. We drove it many times and I always drove 85+ until we got to the more mountainous area. There are "police" at some of the intersections but they don't make an attempt to stop speeders. They just kind of motion for you to slow down if they notice you driving especially fast. I feel badly for the families and communities these guys represented. Dominicans are tight knit in both regards.
January 22nd, 2017 at 9:15 PM ^
Dominicans gonna dominican, one might say then?
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January 22nd, 2017 at 1:14 PM ^
Ventura was undersized as a pitcher but played very big for KC. He had quite the life ahead of him. This is a shame. RIP.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:14 PM ^
Ventura was undersized as a pitcher but played very big for KC. He had quite the life ahead of him. This is a shame. RIP.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:17 PM ^
Are with both families.
January 22nd, 2017 at 1:39 PM ^
Sad sad day, you can not mix drinking with driving. I lost my step brother that way too. Prayers for their families
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January 22nd, 2017 at 1:40 PM ^
R.I.P. To both. Gone too soon.
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January 22nd, 2017 at 2:29 PM ^
Man this sucks. He was fun to watch and despite what other teams and fans thought of him, no one here in KC had a bad thing to say about him. Supposedly a really caring and nice kid. This is crushing both emotionally and in the business sense for the Royals. They were always on a razor thin margin anyway and this crushes any chance they have this year.
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January 22nd, 2017 at 3:31 PM ^
Yup this hurts on many levels. Condolences to the family and the team.
January 22nd, 2017 at 6:44 PM ^
Ventura was a solid pitcher. RIP to the both of them.
January 23rd, 2017 at 8:30 AM ^
Such a shame. I didn't know/remember much about Marte, but I love watching YV throw. It sucked that he pitched for the Royals, but when he wasn't starting against the Tigers it was worth the watch just to see if he was going to piss someone off.