Umps from U.S. fear for safety



A group of American umpires working in the Dominican winter league resigned from their positions Sunday and were to leave the country because they feared for their safety in the wake of an incident in which ex-major leaguer Jose Offerman swung at one of them, a source in the Dominican Baseball League's front office said.

Daniel Rayburn, Jayson Bradley, Justin Vogel and Barry Larson gave notice Sunday to the Dominican League, or LiDom, after an incident between Rayburn and Offerman, the manager for Tigres del Licey who tried to punch the umpire in a game Saturday night against the Cibao Giants.

"They left after filing their report of Saturday's incident," the source said.

Threats were apparently made by fans as the umpires were exiting the baseball field at the end of the game, according to the source.

Offerman, who had come on to the field and was arguing over the ejection of one of his players, was arrested and taken to a police station close to Quisqueya Stadium and released two hours later. He could be charged with a battery count if Rayburn decides to file charges against him.

Offerman apologized in a statement Sunday.

"My attitude during the events that took place during the playoff series between Gigantes and Licey was unjustifiable," he said.

He continued: "Of the aforementioned incident between umpire Daniel Rayburn and myself, which happened during a heated discussion with personal insults which are difficult to tolerate, it is something I'm terribly sorry for.

"I wish to express my most profound apologies to my family, to my faithful followers, to all Dominican sports fans, to our team's fans, to the executives of Tigres del Licey, to the Colegio de Arbitros y Anotadores [Umpire and Scorers Association], to the National Association of Baseball Leagues and to the Dominican Republic Professional Baseball League for my inappropriate conduct, against ethics and generally accepted principles of our sport."

Leonardo Matos-Berrido, president of the Dominican League, was present at Saturday's game and saw the incident.

"It's unheard of that passion in sports reaches levels on intolerance and violence in professional sports as exhibited by a successful athlete, who many Dominicans admire and love," he said. "The Dominican League, its associates and executives offer our national fans and all the Dominican people, who strongly support baseball, our excuses for this regrettable event."

Tigres del Licey general manager Fernando Ravelo echoed Matos-Berrido's words, but said he saw the television replay and it seemed that Rayburn tripped and was not hit by Offerman's fist.

"TV replays show that Rayburn falls [to the ground] when he loses his balance, but not because Offerman hit him," Ravelo said.

Offerman has had a violent incident in baseball in the past, when he hit catcher John Nathans with a bat after being hit by a pitch during an Atlantic Independent League game in 2007. He was sentenced to undergo anger-management therapy and was hit with a $4.8 million civil suit by Nathans, who said he was unable to continue his professional career because of Offerman.

"I appeal to the generosity and indulgence of the public and the Dominican society … with the understanding that I'm a citizen who is respectful and a firm believer of civilized coexistence," Offerman said.

Rash of Dominican Republic drug cheats prompts Tribe to start steroid tests before signing players: Indians Insider
By Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer
March 22, 2010, 11:37PM


INDIANS CHATTER

MESA, Ariz. -- The Indians, after three of their minor-league players from the Dominican Republic recently tested positive for steroids, will conduct testing of their own before signing Latin American players.
Catcher Steven Lebron, second baseman Manuel Boscan and pitcher Jeffry Ceto were suspended for 50 games each by MLB for failing a test for banned substances. The Indians voided their contracts with no cost to the team.
"I've got no sympathy for these guys," said John Mirabelli, the Indians' director of scouting operations. "They broke the law. They fraudulently tried to misrepresent their abilities to us to get a higher signing bonus. They were all educated on this drug testing for a long time."
Mirabelli said the three players have never played an inning for the Indians. They were signed in December and January and were scheduled to play in the Dominican Summer League.
As for conducting their own drug testing program, Mirabelli said, "We still have some I's to dot and T's to cross as far as the legal part is concerned. We're very close to doing our own drug testing prior to these guys signing a contract.
"We see a player, we evaluate him. We verbally agree on a contract. Then we say you're taking a drug test before we sign the contract. It's an added expense to the process, but we're going to try and include our own procedures."
Mirabelli said the players in the Dominican get steroids from their agents/trainers. In the Dominican, they're called buscones.
"There's no organized leagues down there," said Mirabelli. "Kids drop out of school and go to the buscones. They train them and skill develop them full time. They also do some bad things. They get the drugs from the buscones to go to the tryouts to be bigger, faster, stronger so they can get more money.
"That's the simplest part of the equation."
The Indians have signed 14 players since November following the hiring of Roman Pena as director of Latin American Operations. Three have tested positive.
"We have to protect our interests from a financial standpoint," said Mirabelli. "We also have to know the ability of the player we're getting. Having our own drug testing has become part of the equation to know what you're getting.
"We talked to Major League Baseball about doing this last fall. There are about five or six teams where this is part of their process now."
The Indians have already conducted DNA testing on some players from Latin America who received six-figure signing bonuses. Mirabelli estimated his budget for signing international free agents is about $3 million.
The Indians have been signing players out of the Dominican for years. Last year they signed a player they believed to be a 16-year-old shortstop named Jose Ozoria. He turned out to be 20-year-old Wally Bryan. They lost a $570,000 signing bonus.
The Indians retained Bryan, but MLB suspended him for a year when the identity scam was uncovered.
Mirabelli said DNA testing could prevent that from happening again.
He's OK: Manager Manny Acta said Michael Brantley, who left Sunday's game with a sprained right ankle, is all right.
"He went through all the tests and he's fine," said Acta.
Brantley was not scheduled to play in Monday's 9-2 victory over the Cubs.

Indians’ suspensions show risks of doing business in Dominican Republic
By Sheldon Ocker / Akron Beacon Journal | Tuesday, March 23, 2010 |
MESA, Ariz. — It would be foolhardy for major league teams to cut off the Dominican Republic as a source of talent.

The Indians, like most teams, have benefited from the acquisition of a long list of Dominicans: Miguel Dilone, Fausto Carmona, Rico Carty, Carmelo Castillo, Bartolo Colon, Felix Fermin, Julio Franco, Jose Mesa, Tony Pena, Jhonny Peralta and Julian Tavarez [stats], and that is by no means a complete inventory.

But there’s a catch when the Indians, or any team, go hunting for players in the Dominican. That point was brought home last week when three players (all 19 or younger) under contract to the Indians were suspended 50 games from play in the Dominican Summer League for using steroids.

Their suspensions are moot, inasmuch as the Indians voided their contracts before the teenagers had a chance to play a game. Because the season hadn’t started, the bonuses the players were contracted to receive never were paid.

In that respect, the Indians got lucky.

"They never played an inning," said John Mirabelli, assistant general manager for scouting operations. "They signed in November, and they happened to get tested (randomly by Major League Baseball) before the signings were complete, so we have no further obligation.

"If MLB hadn’t done the testing until May, for example, we would have lost the bonuses. We were just fortunate the tests were done in January or February. Because of Dominican law, no team has been able to recover its money (after payment)."

Mirabelli didn’t say how much the franchise saved in signing bonuses to the three players. Probably not a great deal. But he estimated that the club spends $3 million yearly on bonuses to international players.

They signed 14 from the Dominican Republic late last year, and three went bad. That’s three too many as far as Mirabelli is concerned.

"I have no sympathy for them," he said. "They broke the law. They fraudulently misrepresented themselves."

The system of signing players in the Dominican is broken, partly because of buscones, a group of trainer/agents who seek out young teenagers who can play and showcase them to big-league clubs.

Buscones serve a useful purpose in that they help prepare their kids to play baseball. But they also are responsible for distributing steroids to players and often take most of a kid’s bonus as a fee.

"The buscones develop these players, but they also do bad things," Mirabelli said. "The (arrangement) does cast a pretty big blanket over these kids."

Because the Dominican Republic is a poor nation, children all over the island view baseball as a way out of poverty. Buscones promise a lot and sometimes deliver, so the kids keep going to them. But along the way, the buscones sometimes provide a means for players to lie about their age, become a resource for steroids or even change a kid’s name.

"I think this is always going to be out there," Mirabelli said. "They have a culture — it’s dog-eat-dog, how can I get ahead? — and until the culture changes, this will continue."

Mirabelli has a solution, but the Tribe can’t do it alone.

"You almost have to have a clearinghouse, where everybody is vetted. That’s what’s being talked about by MLB. And you really need help from the Dominican government. The buscones need to be registered, like agents are here."

The Indians can’t wait for that. Instead, club officials will institute their own drug testing and use DNA to help positively identify a player.

The Indians are ready to replace their old Dominican complex in Boca Chica, near Santo Domingo, with a new facility that will house as many as 60 young players. In addition to two baseball fields, there will be a cafeteria, housing (four to a room), and instruction in English, Spanish and life skills.

"Because some of these kids drop out of school at 13 or 14 to go with the buscones," Mirabelli said, "we have the Spanish classes."

Another problem: MLB allows teams to sign players as young as 15. In the United States, the minimum age is 17.

"This is just my opinion, but if the age was 17 or 18, it would solve a lot of problems," Mirabelli said. "The other thing is that trying to evaluate a kid at that age (15) is very difficult."

How many of these kids even make it onto a "low" Class A roster?

"I don’t know the percentage," Mirabelli said. "But it’s not good."

———

Former Mets Pitcher Charged With Kidnapping
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 28, 2010

THE NAGUA NITWIT

The police in the Dominican Republic have charged the former major league pitcher Ambiorix Burgos, 26, with kidnapping and attempted murder. Officials said Burgos took his former wife, Dilenia Reynoso, from a prosecutor’s home where she was living after reportedly receiving death threats from him. Burgos, who played for the Mets in 2007, spent nine months in jail after being convicted of assaulting his girlfriend last year.

and before this he punched out his girlfriend
Burgos Is Charged With Assault

By BEN SHPIGEL
Published: September 9, 2008
Mets reliever Ambiorix Burgos was arrested late Monday night on suspicion of beating and biting his girlfriend in a Queens hotel, the police said.

According to a criminal complaint, Burgos threw the woman, Maria Lopez, against a wall and repeatedly slapped and punched her inside a Holiday Inn at 37-10 114th Street, near Shea Stadium.

The complaint, citing Lopez’s account, said that she called 911 but declined to seek medical attention after sustaining a lump on her head and scratches on her back, arms and chest. Burgos, 24, was charged with one count of third-degree assault, punishable by up to one year in prison, and one count of second-degree harassment.

Lopez, 26, and Burgos have lived together on and off.

Burgos has not pitched in the major leagues since last August after having reconstructive elbow surgery. He was in New York for reasons unrelated to the Mets, according to a team spokesman.

and before that it was this ....This guy is an idiot
Jewelry of Mets Reliever Is Stolen From His Hotel

By BEN SHPIGEL
Published: February 21, 2008
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Mets reliever Ambiorix Burgos said he had more than $270,000 worth of jewelry stolen from his hotel room earlier this week, but by Wednesday afternoon he had recovered all but five pieces. Burgos said through an interpreter that he reported to the police Tuesday that a black leather bag containing the jewelry had disappeared and that hours later an unidentified man dropped it off at Burgos’s hotel, the SpringHill Suites, before speeding away.

Burgos went to the Port St. Lucie police department at around 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to the police spokesman Rob Vega, and said he was still missing an estimated $30,000 worth of bracelets, chains and watches.

Burgos said he switched rooms Sunday evening at SpringHill, where many players stay during spring training, and did not notice that the jewelry was missing until Tuesday morning. He contacted the hotel staff, thinking he might have left it in his old room, but a search revealed that it was gone. Vega said the police spoke to hotel staff members who had access to Burgos’s third-floor room, but no one had any knowledge of the bag. At around 7 p.m. Tuesday, a man dropped off the bag at the hotel’s front desk, saying he had found it outside, then ran away and sped off.

Burgos said that in the future, he would store his valuables in a safe.

Ambiorix Burgos-R- Mets Aug. 28 - 7:06 pm et

Former Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos has been charged with kidnapping and attempted murder in his native Dominican Republic.
Burgos spent several months in jail last year for beating his girlfriend in a hotel near Shea Stadium and he was involved in a car accident that killed two women in 2008. The 26-year-old is now being charged for kidnapping his ex-wife and making her consume rat poison. Awfulness all around.
Source: Associated Press


Ambiorix Burgos-R- Mets Apr. 14 - 9:43 pm et

Former Mets and Royals pitcher Ambiorix Burgos will spend nine months in jail after beating his girlfriend in a hotel near Shea Stadium last September.
Burgos punched, slapped, and stepped on his then-girlfriend and reportedly boasted "The police won't won't do anything to me. I am a baseball player." Well, he was a baseball player, but those days are gone.

This guy is 6 feet 3 inches and weights 250 he killed two women in a hummer and has an extreme history of beating women What a loser

Put him in a room with that recent child molester; I'm sure they'll have a nice time together. 20 to life should do it for both

Ambiorix Burgos, Former Met Pitcher, Forces Ex-Wife To Eat Rat Poison
By Christopher Chavez (Featured Columnist) on August 29, 2010


The crazed ex-Met in 2008 before he was cut by the team.
Doug Benc/Getty Images
The headline and the story is not satire, but sadly a true story coming out of the Dominican Republic.

According to the Associated Press, the ex-wife of Ambiorix Burgos is claiming that her crazed former husband forced her to eat rat poison. The accusation has led to kidnapping and attempted murder charges on the former Major Leaguer.

Ambiorix Burgos is not a stranger to trouble as in 2008, he was charged with hit-and-run charges in Dominican Republic. The charges were dropped, but he still could not avoid jail time.

A New York City judge ordered him to nine months in prison for assaulting his girlfriend in a hotel near the late Shea Stadium.

Another interesting thing to note about how crazy the pitcher has become is the fact that he was giving death threats to his girlfriend before trying to kill her.

Due to these latest accusations, a judge in the Dominican Republic has ordered that Burgos remain in jail for three months until a case is ready to be presented in court.

Burgos was a New York Met in 2007. That year was also his last stint in the Major Leagues. The two years before that he pitched for the Kansas City Royals. In his career, he has 20 saves and an 8-10 record.

Since the New York Mets released him December of 2008, no Major League team has even been rumored to have had interest in the pitcher. Good to say, he will most likely never pitch in the Major Leagues again after these latest accusations