Friday, August 9, 2019

I really am fascinated by this Jim Breuer/Mets/Cartel joke thing.



With the whole Jim Breuer/Mets/Barstool/Drug Cartel supposedly being racist controversy, has any one checked in with Wilson Ramos? I mean he was kidnapped in his home country of Venezuela in 2011. Has anybody checked in? 

Here is the clip everyone is up in arms about.



I wonder how close to home this hit the Mets Catcher. He was kidnapped and held for ransom. I don't know if they were any drug cartel ties to this crime or if were folks that just wanted to make a quick buck off of someones hard work and basically by threatening someones life. Just like Jim implied that was going on with Diaz and Familia.

From MLB.com

NEW YORK -- Some years, it’s with champagne, straight out of the bottle. Other years call for cocktails. One way or another, Mets catcher Wilson Ramos makes it a point to celebrate every 11th of November “like a birthday.”
That was the day, in 2011, when Venezuelan police commandos freed Ramos from the kidnappers who had taken him at gunpoint in front of his childhood home in the city of Valencia, allegedly with the intention of seeking ransom. After a two-day manhunt that rattled the baseball world and ended with a gunfight deep in the mountains west of the city, Ramos made it back home, his 6-foot-1 frame no worse for the wear.
Ramos was shaken, no doubt. But he was alive and well.
“I feel like I was born again on that day,” says Ramos, in Spanish, on a spring afternoon at Citi Field. “I try to enjoy it to the max because it was a special day -- a wonderful day when I got to see my family, my mother, my father and my siblings again.”
The conversation soon turns to the tattoo on the inside of his left forearm, which features the date of his liberation in numerical form -- 11-11-11 -- and a verse from the Bible, Philippians 4:13. Ramos was 24 and coming off his rookie season with the Nationals when he was abducted. The tattoo was freshly inked when he showed up at Washington’s camp the following spring.In 2011, Ramos hit .267 with 15 home runs and 52 RBIs in 113 games for Washington on his way to finishing fourth in the National League Rookie of the Year Award balloting. But it was another number -- his $415,000 salary -- that presumably caught the attention of the armed men who pulled up in front of his home in the Santa Ines neighborhood of Valencia around 6:45 p.m. on Nov. 9, shoved him into an orange SUV and took off, all while his horrified family looked on.
Kept in a remote mountain hideout, surrounded by what he described as “practically a jungle,” sleep eluded Ramos. He had no appetite for the arepas ­­-- traditional corn cakes -- that his captors offered. He doesn’t recall how many pounds he lost, but he remembers being decidedly slimmer when it was all over, some 51 hours later.
Ramos later told Venezuelan state television that his abductors mocked him and talked about the money they were going to make at his expense. The last moments of his ordeal were among the most harrowing, as the kidnappers and police exchanged gunfire, though, according to the Venezuelan government, no one was killed.
“No one is prepared for an experience like that, to have to think about never going back home, never seeing your family again,” says Ramos. “It was very traumatic for me.”
Ramos is the first known Major Leaguer to fall into the hands of kidnappers in Venezuela. However, the families of big league players have long been targeted in a country where years of economic instability have bred crime and violence. The mothers of former Major Leaguers Ugueth Urbina and Victor Zambrano were kidnapped. For Yorvit Torrealba, it was his son and two other relatives. They were all recovered safely. Henry Blanco’s brother did not survive.
Most recently, in February 2018, Pirates catcher Elias Diaz’s mother was rescued after being held captive for three days.
Kidnappings aren’t the only perils that Venezuela holds for a professional athlete. In December, free agent Luis Valbuena and former Major League infielder Jose Castillo were killed when their vehicle crashed as the driver attempted to avoid an obstacle placed in the road by bandits.
Though he was aware of the dangers, Ramos was blindsided to find himself a target.
“It was something I wasn’t expecting,” Ramos said. “I’ve always been someone who likes to help others. I’ve always been close to my friends, to my neighbors.”
But Ramos also felt plenty of love and support during the ordeal, in Venezuela and beyond. As the authorities searched for him, fans in Washington organized a candlelight vigil for him outside the center-field gates at Nationals Park. The latter gesture took him by surprise, considering he had played just one full season in the big leagues.
“I was really moved by what the fans in Washington did,” Ramos said. “Their support was enormous. I didn’t expect it. That made me really happy.”
Read more here.

I wonder how funny Wilson Ramos finds this. Does he think it is a harmless joke? I bet being kidnapped is constantly in the back of his head and pops out when it is least expected. Did Jim even remember that this happened to Ramos?

Just look at all he crap that is going on with the criminals and MLB ball players and their families with these criminals. This is crazy. I find a lot of Jim's stuff funny. Some of it I find hacky. The one thing that is being lost in this world lately is comedy is supposed to make you laugh and also to think.  Some jokes hit, some miss. I think if Jim didn't do the voices and he made this joke it might have not gone the way it had. Folks hate Barstool so they are looking for any excuse to go after them. Folks are also tired of Jim Breuer and other comedians popping up when the Mets are relevant again. It really was a perfect storm for this to happen. Do I think Breuer is racist. I know people who know him and they all he say the same thing, he isn't. Is his I grew up in LI in the 1970's act aging well?

Doesn't seem it.

It's all just so fascinating.
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