Spring training just started and Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos is not only catching balls, but flack as well after his kidnapping episode this winter.
Within Thomas Boswell's article for The Washington Post highlighting the first days of Nationals spring training is a passage regarding a prank orchestrated by pitching coach Steve McCatty:
Pitching coach Steve McCatty bumped into Wilson Ramos, jostling him sideways, as they passed in a narrow clubhouse corridor here on Monday as the Washington Nationals pitchers and catchers reported to spring training.
“So, how was your winter?” asked McCatty. “Anything goin’ on?”
Ramos stood stunned, blank-faced and speechless — totally fooled for a blink. Then infielder Andres Blanco started cracking up. “I see, I see,” said a laughing Ramos, who was kidnapped in November, held captive in a Venezuelan mountain shack for two days and freed after a gun battle.
McCatty’s day will come. No baseball gag goes unsettled.
Too soon? Perhaps. Ramos was kidnapped by gunpoint in his native Venezuela in early November. He was rescued two days later, but the fact that he can laugh it off and take such ribbing in stride is a sign of Ramos' strong resolve.
Then again, one has to wonder what Ramos will do to give McCatty his comeuppance. Stay tuned...
