CARACAS (Reuters) ? Washington Nationals baseball catcher Wilson Ramos was kidnapped on Wednesday from a family home in Venezuela, police and colleagues said.
"We only know four armed men in a van took him away from his house," Kathe Vilera, a spokeswoman for the local Aragua Tigres team where Ramos was playing during the Major League Baseball off-season, said on her Twitter site.
The Tigres (Tigers) are based in the city of Maracay, and Ramos was taken in the nearby city of Valencia.
Kidnappings are rife in the South American nation, where crime and violence rival some of the world's worst trouble spots.
Police confirmed the kidnapping and said they were deploying to try to rescue him, although the 24-year-old Venezuelan player's location was unknown.
"Two men burst in when he was spending time with family and friends, about 7 p.m," Jose Humberto Ramirez, national director of Venezuela's investigative police force, told local radio.
Baseball is Venezuela's No. 1 sport, with local fans immensely proud of their players who have made it into the U.S. major leagues.
Most kidnappings in Venezuela are for financial motives, with gangs demanding large ransoms and mainly preying on local businessmen and landowners.
"There is still no news, we are still waiting and praying," Vilera added.
Ramos had a .267 batting average with 15 home runs and 52 runs batted in for Washington in the 2011 season.
(Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Peter Cooney)
black star joan baez gravitas steve jobs and bill gates steve jobs quotes pancreatic cancer symptoms apple stock
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.