The Forgotten Man

Mike Stanton and David Weathers got two-year deals from the Reds, Justin Speier signed up for four years and $18 million with the Angels, Danys Baez got $19 million from the Orioles.

Relief pitchers, as much as any subset of professional baseball player, are reaping the benefits of a whirlwind hot stove free agent market this offseason. So, while it's never a good time to be stuck in a prison in Caracas, Venezuela awaiting trial on attempted murder charges, for a reliever with a live arm this is a particularly bad time to be so inconvenienced.

Welcome to the existence of Ugueth Urbina.

If he is, indeed, still in prison.

Urbina was arrested and charged with attempted murder, conspiring with others to commit a crime, illegal deprivation of liberty and violating a prohibition against taking justice into one's own hands, according to the AP, just about a year ago, after a remarkably violent evening in and around the ranch house outside Caracas that Urbina owns, during which several individuals were allegedly beaten, struck with a machete and set on fire. Urbina, through his attorney, denies any involvement in the incident and claims that he was asleep when it took place.

In the months following his arrest, there was a flurry of press about what may or may not have happened that fateful evening. Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, Urbina's friend, visited him in prison - he has, apparently, visited him there several additional times. Pedro Gomez of ESPN also adjourned to the prison in Los Teques, on the edge of the city, to interview Urbina about his situation, managing to get several photos of him behind bars.

Since then, the news on Urbina has been sparse, a relative trickle. More than a year has passed since Urbina was arrested, and, incredibly, very few people (at least very few people who are willing to waste their time speaking with a blogger) seem to know what the present status of his situation may be. In light of Urbina's relative prominence in baseball, and, of course, in his native Venezuela, as well as the horrific details of the night in question, you might have expected this story to have a longer lifespan than a few months.

In researching this column, I called Urbina's agents, who did not return my call. I also sent an e-mail to the individual identified as his attorney in early stories on the incident, who did not respond. While it's likely that almost every person directly associated with baseball, whether with the league, one of the teams, or the press, has an idea about what Urbina's status is, it is strange that this information has not been widely disseminated to the general public for many months.

Perhaps this is as a result of the fact that his case has come to a delicate point in its evolution, and those closest to him dare not speak publicly for fear of upsetting the powers that be. Or, more ominously, perhaps the silence relates somehow to the administration of recently reelected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and its suddenly tenuous relationship with Major League Baseball. Could it be extortion is in the works, or perhaps the dreadful Venezuelan legal system is having its way with Urbina the same as it does most any other citizen who has the misfortune of finding himself in its clutches?

Whatever the circumstances of his present situation, the tragic story that Ugueth Urbina's life has become is very much wrapped up in the country from which he rose to prominence, and in which he is now a prisoner. Urbina is Venezuela, and Venezuela is Urbina. Let me explain as best I can.

The Wild West

Or, one might think from some of the news that emanates from this picturesque and resource-rich country that sits at the northern tip of South America, lodged between Columbia and Brazil. Blessed with a geography that yields a massive oil supply, and maintaining a democratic-model government since 1958, one could reasonably assume that Venezuela must be a bastion of stability, truly the "Land of Grace" that Chris Columbus saw in 1498.

In fact, this is not the case at all.

Venezuela is very much an urbanized society, with some 80% of its population crammed into the cities in the northern part of the country. And, despite the wealth that is generated every year by the sale of oil, $57.8 billion in oil sales outside the country in 2006, for instance, almost half of the population still lives in poverty. Violent crime is common in Venezuela, including kidnapping for ransom. This is how the U.S. Department of State describes the problems:

The country has the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. Armed robberies take place in broad daylight...including [in] areas generally presumed safe and frequented by tourists. Well armed criminal gangs operate with impunity, often setting up fake police checkpoints. Kidnapping is a particularly serious problem, with more than 1,000 reported during the past year alone. There have been several high profile kidnappings that have resulted in murder...

Oh, yeah, and don't forget this little nugget:

Investigation of all crime is haphazard and ineffective. In the case of high-profile killings, the authorities quickly round up suspects, but rarely produce evidence linking these individuals to the crime. Only a very small percentage of criminals are tried and convicted.

The breadth of this strange juxtaposition of oil wealth and widespread violence and poverty in the populace is exceeded only in Venezuela's government, where a democracy has been put in the hands of a man with, seemingly, the soul of a dictator.

Venezuela is a complicated place.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Hugo Chavez

The current president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has been twice elected to the post, three times if you count the recall referendum of 2004, however his first effort to take charge of his country's government was by force. Chavez, a career military man, staged a failed coup d'etat against Carlos Andres Perez in 1992, a tragedy of errors that ultimately resulted in civilian deaths, and Chavez and a handful of merry men holed up in the Historical Museum (of all places) in Caracas. He was forced to surrender, and was jailed for several years before being pardoned.

Despite the colossal failure of his coup attempt, many in Venezuela saw not a bungling bandit before them, but rather a courageous man willing to risk everything to overthrow a corrupt and oppressive regime. Thus, when Chavez was released from prison in 1994, he decided to gain the presidency in a more legitimate fashion and, as you would by all rights expect, formed a political party of his own. He was elected president in 1998, and re-elected last year for a second six-year term.

The Chavez government has been notable for its drama as much as anything else. Steadily increasing oil revenues have allowed the government to roll out a long series of social initiatives, "missions" as they are called, designed to improve life for the Venezuelan people. Alas, many problems persist, as the U.S. Department of State points out. And, Chavez has insisted on vilifying the United States, engaging in disputes with the leaders of other countries, including neighbors, and has alleged a steady drumbeat of coup attempts, all while conducting a public friendship with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. His behavior has not endeared him to the world, and today Venezuela is somewhat isolated as a result.

Now, as Chavez begins his second term as president, he has apparently turned his attentions, at least in part, to baseball. Major League Baseball in particular.

In a TimesOnline story on November 25, 2006, Graham Dunbar, reporting from Caracas, first raised the specter that Chavez could staunch the flow of baseball talent from Venezuela to the United States. Specifically, Dunbar writes, Chavez may "close the domestic professional league and restrict the rights of sportsmen to play in America." As the author notes, nine professional teams have established baseball academies in Venezuela, spending millions of dollars in order to have access to the country's many baseball prodigies.

Recently at The Sporting News, by way of Yahoo! Sports, Mark Berardino briefly expanded on this issue, stating that with the reelection of Chavez "major league teams are growing more wary of sending players there for winter ball, or even having their Venezuelan stars visit home during the offseason." A "National League club official" is quoted downplaying the prospect of Chavez potentially banning Venezuelan players from coming to the U.S., citing Chavez' abiding love for the game of baseball.

Bobby Abreau hails from Venezuela, so do Magglio Ordonez, Melvin Mora, Carlos Zambrano and Johan Santana. The TimesOnline piece states that 43 Venezuelan players were on Major League rosters at the start of the 2006 season. The impact of Venezuelan ballplayers on American baseball cannot be overstated, and the loss of this talent pool would be a devastating blow to the game.

For whatever reason, Hugo Chavez loathes America, that is a well-documented fact. If you happen to be a person who believes that his love of baseball is bigger than his hatred of America, that he will forego an opportunity to hurt America, or to put money in his pocket by holding ballplayers hostage, than perhaps you need to acquaint yourself a bit more intimately with the words and opinions of the inimitable Mr. Chavez.

If he thinks he can get away with it, history dictates that he'll do it. You can count on it.

The Forgotten Man

And, so, we come back around to our Forgotten Man, Ugie Urbina who, as far as we know, is sitting idle in a prison in Los Teques awaiting trial on attempted murder charges. Why is it taking so long for Urbina to be tried for his alleged crimes? Why was he not granted bail, or allowed to await trial on house arrest, rather than in prison? Has he somehow become caught up in the push and pull between Hugo Chavez, Major League Baseball and the U.S. government?

Did he do what they say he did?

If you were to make an attempt at judging his potential culpability with regard to the crimes that he has been charged with on the basis of his personal history, you might be inclined to think that there is some bit of truth in there, that maybe he did at least some of what they say he did. Of course, if you listen to his friends, there's no way in tarnation he was involved.

Ugie Urbina is a complicated man.

Born in Caracas in 1974, he was signed as an amateur free agent by the Montreal Expos in 1990. Carrying the heavy weight of four names, Ugueth Urtain (Villareal) Urbina, three of which begin with the letter "u" and a nickname that is variously found as "Ugie" or "Uggie" or "Oogie" he nonetheless became a dominant reliever over the course of his 11-year career, logging 237 saves and a 3.35 ERA, and picked up a World Series ring in 2003 with the Florida Marlins. According to BaseballReference.com, Urbina earned over $25 million playing professional baseball.

Despite his success, Urbina ran into his share of troubles along the way. Really, a touch more than his share. There was the assault trial in 2000, when he was pitching for his first team, the Expos. There was the allegedly drunken altercation with several Detroit Tigers teammates on a flight that precipitated a trade to the Phillies. According to ESPN, Urbina ran into frequent trouble with the authorities back in Venezuela as well, arrested for allegedly firing a gun in the street in Caracas in 2004 while intoxicated, and was investigated for alleged fighting twice, and a traffic infraction. And, as Jayson Stark memorably pointed out back in February of 2005, he was not always the most beloved of teammates:

Throughout his career, Urbina has always been a guy singing a slightly different tune than the rest of the chorus. Teammates describe him as a guy who keeps to himself; doesn't take part in what one described as "a whole lot of team activities"; remains alone in the clubhouse until the eighth inning of games he might be called on to close; almost never speaks to the press.

However, it is not as though Urbina had no friends in baseball. White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen is a close friend, so is Bobby Abreau, who grew up with Urbina in Caracas. It was Abreau who told Bucks County Courier Times writer Randy Miller in March, 2006, of the incident that led to Urbina's incarceration in Caracas, that: "I saw the reports. It's not true. I don't have to do an investigation. I know my buddy. I know Uggie very well. He didn't do it."

However, in the same piece Miller cites "baseball insiders" who "hear [that] the evidence is overwhelming" against Urbina.

Oh, yeah, the evidence. I guess we should get to that.

The "Evidence"

What this blogger can glean from the different versions of the incident available in various internet periodicals, particularly what appears to be the most specific and accurate recounting of the facts, at ESPN, on the night of the incident, October 15 and the morning of October 16, 2005, Urbina was allegedly involved in some kind of dispute at his ranch outside Caracas, with five (or six) workers he had hired shortly before the incident. The men claim that he and several friends accused them of stealing a firearm and other belongings from his house, and then proceeded to strike them with a machete, spray them with gasoline and set them on fire. Photographs of the victims after the incident are not pretty.

A girlfriend of one of the accusers, and her minor son, also accused Urbina of detention and torture on the night of the incident. While there may be other witnesses to the attack in addition to the accusers, I can find no evidence of this in what has been written about the incident to date.

Urbina, for his part, has been quoted as describing his accusers as being very intoxicated on the date of the incident, and alleges that he is the victim of an extortion attempt. His mother, Maura Villareal, also believes her son is a victim of extortion - in fact, she has been quoted as stating that she received a telephone call shortly after the incident demanding money in exchange for the freedom of her son.

More recently Urbina's attorney stated that there was an altercation at his home on the date in question, but it did not involve Urbina, rather it involved two sets of rival workers fighting against each other.

There's your "evidence" if you want to call it that. At least the evidence that we, the public, have been made privy to thus far.

It isn't what most lawyers would call overwhelming.

As far as a potential motive for such heinous acts from a man who, while he certainly has a checkered past, never displayed the kind of sociopathic tendencies that one would seemingly require in order to act in the way that he has been accused of acting? There is a bit more fertile ground here to work over.

Mom and Dad

Incredibly, not one but both of Ugie Urbina's parents were the victims of violent crime in Venezuela. His father, Juan, was killed in 1994 during an attempt to steal his truck. And, in 2004 his mother, Maura Villareal, was kidnapped and held for five months by men who demanded a $6 million ransom.

The circumstances of her kidnapping and rescue are interesting. She was abducted from the same home where, eight months or so after her rescue, the incident would occur that resulted in Urbina's arrest and detention. This AP story, by way of ESPN, tells of witness statements indicating that the kidnappers were wearing police uniforms when they abducted her. Then, an anti-kidnapping squad, after five months, discerns, somehow, that she is being held in a "remote mountainous area" used as a tourist camp, and takes a boat up a river to rescue her in a hail of bullets.

She comes away miraculously unharmed. One of the kidnappers is killed.

Certainly the five-month ordeal must have been an incredible burden on Ugie Urbina. The stresses, frustration and anger that this likely created for Urbina would probably be immeasurable. The idea that a man who has had his father killed and then endured such an experience as the kidnapping of his mother could harbor resentment toward the working class people of his country is not outside the realm of reasonable.

Is there a potential motivating factor for violent behavior in these circumstances? A very weak argument could be made if one were so inclined.

Of course, if you were a cynic, you might take this remarkable story and say: what the hell is going on here? Men dressed as police kidnap a woman, hold her without harm for five months and then are suddenly located and subdued by heroic government officials with not a scratch on the kidnappee?

And, then, eight months later the kidnappee's son is implicated in a horrific crime?

Is it possible that Ugie Urbina was not grateful enough for the curiously skillful sleuthing and rescue of the government agents? Who were these mysterious kidnappers? Do they have links to the government?

Perhaps what we have here is not a motive at all. Perhaps what we have here are chapters in a longer story in which Urbina is being manipulated by forces at work in his own country.

Now

Now, Urbina, from all indications, as far as this blogger can tell, awaits trial at Los Teques in what must seem like an interminable journey to the recommencement of his life. According to a quote in USA Today by friend and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who has visited Urbina in prison several times, he lives in a "cell of bunk beds with 33 others." The great Ugie Urbina has become just another of so many nameless, faceless victims of a government's impotence and a system's failings, very much a citizen in full of a beautiful and engaging, but still troubled place.

In the wake of the strange phenomena of his life and the incident in question, one is also left to wonder if Ugie Urbina has become a pawn of an often irresponsible, oppressive government, caught up in something much larger than even a rich and successful baseball player would be expected to find himself.

In that, too, he would be just another of countless victims of sociopolitical circumstance.

Ironically Urbina is being held in the very same miserable prison system that Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, is himself intimately familiar: he lost some of his eyesight when he became ill during his stint in jail following that failed coup attempt in 1992.

Unfortunately for him, it does not appear that Ugie Urbina will receive the favor of a pardon for his alleged crimes, as Chavez did. Quite the contrary, so far. And, unfortunately for baseball fans here, we will continue to grapple with more questions than answers about Urbina's situation, and will continue to be without the company of Urbina for the foreseeable future, left to contemplate a day when Major League Baseball begins a season without any Venezuelan ballplayers on any rosters at all.

A somber thought indeed.