IBAF wants explanation into Venezuela's travel issues

International Baseball Federation president Riccardo Fraccari says he’s not happy with how things transpired getting Venezuela to Thunder Bay and promised the sport’s governing body will get to the bottom of it once the World Junior Baseball Championship is in the books.

Fraccari, who arrived in Thunder Bay on Saturday, said he was fully aware of the situation, but like officials already in the city, there was little he could do to remedy the situation, caused by visa issues on the Venezuelan end.

The team made it to Thunder Bay on Saturday, after initially pulling out of the 10-day tournament, unable to secure permission for their players and coaches to enter Canada.

Fraccari said the IBAF has to be careful where it places the blame and what penalties, if any, it hands out.

“We don’t want to penalize the players. In November we will discuss it,” he said.

IBAF official Ian Young, who handled the situation from a local level, said the organization was in constant communication with the Venezuelan team throughout the ordeal as they tried to find a solution that would allow the team to participate at the WJBC.

Young, who on Saturday greeted the dozen or so Venezuelans to initially arrive in Canada, on Sunday said they’re glad they’re here and playing in the tournament, even if they had to forfeit their opener and re-schedule their second game against Italy, a contest they eventually lost in extra innings.

Like Fraccari, he said the IBAF will definitely be looking into exactly what happened – and admitted they still don’t know the full details of what went on – and do their best to ensure it never happens again.

“What we know for sure is they weren’t here. There are some reasons that have been floated, but we don’t want to speculate what those reasons are. But now that they’re here the tournament’s being played and we’ll be able to have the tournament that we wanted to have,” Young said.

One of the rumours suggested the team didn’t file its visa applications until two days before they were scheduled to leave, suggesting they never had any intentions of coming to Canada at all.

Then on Saturday tbnewswatch.com learned from local tournament officials that not everyone was happy the Venezuelans were allowed back into the tournament and that a four-and-a-half hour meeting was held to broach the subject.

The Italians, the source said, were livid that they were being forced to reschedule their game, originally slated for 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Port Arthur Stadium.

Instead they played at 4 p.m. at Baseball Central’s secondary diamond, which teams are using as a scheduled practice facility this week.

“They were definitely frustrated with the lack of information, I guess,” Young said. “But on the whole they won the game. I think they’re very happy with that ... But I think we’ll be discussing with them after the tournament as well so they can fully let us know how they’re feeling.”

If it was frustrating for WJBC officials, it was an outright hair-pulling experience for the Venezuelan contingent, who were often just as much in the dark as anyone, not knowing if and when they were coming to Thunder Bay and why there were complications.

Even Venezuelan manager Cesar Comenares didn’t have all the answers.

“We were planning to come on Tuesday, but we found out that we didn’t have the visas. There was some paperwork that didn’t go through,” he said through an interpreter. “For two days we had people from the IBAF technical group working with the embassy and we finally got the visas. It was basically a miracle at the last minute and we came.”

For the players, it was heartbreaking to work so hard, only to be told they couldn’t take part, said 16-year-old Jeckson Flores.

“I’m not fully aware what happened. That’s the coach’s work, but when we finally got the word we got the visas and we could travel, well, I’m happy to be here,” Flores said through an interpreter.

Now that he is, he and his teammates have put it in their past, and have only one thing on their minds.

“We want to play well and continue winning.”

In other IBAF news, Fraccari said the organization is looking at returning the WJBC to annual event status, something it enjoyed from 1981 to 1997.