mgobleu

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.

Hotel Putingrad

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.

Eat Your Wheatlies

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. 

rainingmaize

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. 

Brian Griese

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.

NittanyFan

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.

Eat Your Wheatlies

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

uferfan

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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mrmarvin

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.

KC Wolve

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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goblue224

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.