Team Venezuela’s 7–9 year old players, though new to the game, won the November Lil’ Bombers League championship. The team is entirely composed of recent immigrants to the US, most of whom are from Venezuela, where baseball is the national sport. Photo by Kristin Allison

“My friends here who don’t know the story of these children, they’re like ‘great—they won a championship.’ They don’t understand all that these children suffered to get here,” says Raicibe Marin Linarez. Her two sons play on Team Venezuela, a baseball team comprised entirely of recently arrived migrants. Players brought home trophies after winning the championship for the 7–9 age group in November.

If you’ve driven by the Central Park MCA baseball fields near Stanley Marketplace, you may have seen her two sons and their teammates playing. In their golden Altitude All Sports t-shirts, Team Venezuela looks like most other youth baseball teams playing in the Lil’ Bombers League. What sets them apart is what it took for them to get here.

Mathias Linarez, age 4 at the time of this photo, bats for Team Venezuela, his first baseball team in his new home of Denver. Photo by Kristin Allison

Linarez is a Venezuelan asylum-seeker and mother to 9-year-old Erickson and 5-year-old Mathias. She recounts the family’s months-long journey on foot, including a perilous odyssey through the notorious Darien Gap, the mountainous rainforest region that straddles Colombia and Panama. Linarez didn’t want to leave Venezuela, but felt she had no other options and in the end decided to risk the treacherous journey.

The family ran out of resources along the way and had to sleep on the streets. Everyone suffered from extreme hunger. A bad case of diarrhea left her youngest looking “like a skeleton” in Honduras. A priest invited them to spend the night in a church last Christmas, but otherwise they would have been sleeping along the railroad tracks. When they arrived in Denver, Mathias refused to walk anywhere at first, so scarred by the journey.

Earlier this year, Linarez’ family was one of almost a hundred who responded to a Facebook post seeking to organize a youth baseball team. The brainchild of two recently confirmed members of Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Park Hill, high school students and Central Park residents Hank Turner and Will Vanderford decided their service project would be to create a baseball team for newly-arrived migrant youth.

“Montview has a tradition of having the confirmands do a service project as an expression of their faith in the world,” says Andrew Turner, father of Hank. The community’s interest was overwhelming, and offers of support also poured in.

Turner also enlisted Central Park resident Gabe Hurley, who owns and operates Altitude All Sports. “Hank and Will came up through Altitude All Sports. I was a coach there for many years and we knew Gabe and that league well. We reached out to Gabe and were pleased to get a very enthusiastic response. Altitude All Sports bent over backwards to facilitate getting the refugee team enrolled and ready to go. Gabe is a great unsung hero in making all this happen.”

“This is more than a game,” says Linarez, who expresses profound gratitude to all those who have given the children an opportunity to play baseball. Erickson had always wanted to play but did not have the opportunity in his own country. Baseball is Venezuela’s national sport and the nation produces many Major League Baseball players. “Talking about Venezuela is talking about baseball, and talking about baseball is talking about Venezuela,” says Edgar Ramos, who coaches Team Venezuela, which includes ages 7–9 and 10–12.

Coach Edgar Ramos (top left) stands with both age divisions of Team Venezuela, a baseball team of recent immigrants who now call Denver home. Photo by Kristin Allison

A recent immigrant himself, Ramos had previously coached youth baseball, and Turner was eager to enlist him for the new team. Ramos was excited to get started as soon as the weather allowed this spring. Most of the young players had never played before, but he recognized that the children living in the temporary housing provided by the City of Denver needed a healthy outlet that could restore the spirit of play. One of the parents cried with joy to see their children being able to play and “be children” after their harrowing journey.

Santhiago Arteaga, 5, with Venezuelan-born MLB shortstops Ezequiel Tovar (left) and Livan Soto. Photo courtesy of Edgar Ramos

Hank Turner (left) and Will Vanderford, who both play baseball for their high school teams, came up with the idea to start a baseball team for migrant youth. Front Porch photo by Christie Gosch

Ramos reached out to Venezuelan-born Colorado Rockies shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. The recent 2024 Golden Glove Awardee brought balls, bats, and other equipment to the young Team Venezuela, taking photos with the smiling kids. Tovar embodies the dream of many young Venezuelans, a dream Ramos shared as a younger man.

Everyone involved in this project shares their immense gratitude for all those involved. “I am grateful to the parents for trusting me to train their kids,” says Ramos. Linarez thanks God for her family’s good fortune in surviving, and for the baseball team that has given her children a chance to be children again. “Andrew [Turner] said to me ‘we don’t let ourselves get pulled in by the news.’  He didn’t know us and only knew the stereotype of Venezuelans but he ignored that and opened his heart to us. Only God can repay him what he has given us.”

The UN Refugee Agency reports that “more than 7.7 million people have left Venezuela in search of protection and a better life.” While the majority (6.5 million) have settled elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, Denver has received more than 42,000 migrants since the end of 2022.

To donate to the GoFundMe established for Team Venezuela by high school students Turner and Vanderford go to https://gofund.me/6bdf615f