PHOENIX _ Revolution reached PNC Park last weekend when Felipe Rivero unfurled a Venezuelan flag he had ordered on Amazon and stretched it across an empty locker beside his in the clubhouse. With a silver marker, Rivero spelled out a message he planned to share with the world. He wrote it on the back of his Pirates cap. Francisco Cervelli wrote it on his eye black.
S.O.S. VENEZUELA
For more than a month, protesters have swarmed streets throughout Venezuela demanding President Nicolas Maduro, the successor of Hugo Chavez, be removed from power. The country is in economic crisis. Severe food and medicine shortages have caused massive inflation. The unemployment and violent-crime rates have spiked. Rolling blackouts began in late April.
The death toll in Venezuela's month of political turmoil is at least 38, according to The Associated Press. Hundreds have been injured, and more than 1,300 people have been detained in the unrest.
"It's hard to wake up every day and (see) what has happened," Rivero said Friday. "You see people dying. You see pictures every day. And you try not to take that into the game. It's tough."
For weeks, Rivero and Cervelli scanned Instagram on their cell phones and shared scenes from anti-government demonstrations. Videos of tear-gas canisters flying into crowds, of police brutality, of Maduro dancing while military vehicles advanced protesters in the streets. The players were active in the conversation but weren't sure what impact they could have from afar.
Before the Pirates played the Milwaukee Brewers on May 5, Cervelli spoke with Hernan Perez during batting practice. They started to hatch a plan. They got together after the game and began contacting some of the 70 other Venezuelans currently on active rosters. They called. They texted. They asked players to send videos voicing their support of the protesters.
Three days later, Cervelli posted a video on his Instagram page, which has more than 181,000 followers, that featured messages from 13 players from three teams. The caption, translated, read, "THAT'S ENOUGH! THE CRIES OF MILLIONS OF VOICES FOR VENEZUELA."
"All the Venezuelan athletes in the world, we've got to make noise," Cervelli said Friday. "The people in my country are lonely. They are fighting, and no one is helping. People born in Venezuela are killing their own people. It's crazy. They shouldn't have the kind of power to do what they're doing. It's been 18 years (of Socialist Party rule) already. It's out of control."
Others have shared similar sentiments recently on social media. Rivero took the Venezuelan flag on the Pirates road trip to Los Angeles and Phoenix. The Dodgers' Yasiel Puig, a Cuban, posted on Twitter a photo of him holding the flag. "We are with you, my Venezuela," Puig wrote in Spanish. "Keep fighting and soon the abuse will be over and those people will pay."
Rivero and Cervelli spoke with Arizona Diamondbacks' David Peralta and Gregor Blanco, their fellow countrymen, before their series began Friday and filmed a message with them.
"We don't know what kind of impact it's going to have," Rivero said "Right now it may not make much, but it's a little bit, at least. Trying to say something and let them know we are with them."
Other major leaguers have reached out and asked Cervelli how to get involved. Cervelli said he's not trying to be the leader. For years and years, he hardly followed politics at all. He shrugged and said, "I don't have interest in that kind of stuff. I'm just talking as a Venezuelan human being, man. The human rights there are zero. No one is doing anything. We need help."
Cervelli's parents live in Venezuela. He and his girlfriend, Migbelis Castellanos Romero, who was Miss Venezuela in 2013, have shipped packages to their families in Venezuela. They sent rice, beans, deodorant, medicine and more _ common supplies that have gotten so scarce and expensive, Cervelli said, "you have to find them on the black market." Rivero said he has sent money and first-aid materials to his parents and relatives in San Felipe, Venezuela.
Last week, the Major League Baseball commissioner's office released a memo informing teams the league will hold three showcases outside of the country for Venezuelan players. The memo, obtained by ESPN Deportes, labeled the situation as "extremely dangerous and volatile." Teams still scouting in Venezuela were told to give all travel information to the league's security staff.
On Friday, shortly before the Pirates' game against the Diamondbacks, Rivero and Cervelli posed for a photo with teammate Jose Osuna and bullpen catcher Heberto Andrade, the other Venezuelans in the team's current traveling party. They were holding the flag upside-down.
Cervelli said he isn't afraid of backlash for broadcasting his views.
"Forty days of protests," he said. "They're not going to stop."
And so?
"We won't stop," Cervelli continued. "We've got to help the best we can. The most important thing is the people there in the streets every single day _ getting (tear-)gassed, getting shot by guns. We have to call out the bad people. This has to stop.
"Everyone is scared. A lot of (players) say, 'We're not going to do the video. We're scared for our family there.' Other guys say, 'Well, it's worse if the government stays there. We have to do it.' "
