Yankees Triumph Over Venezuela in Thrilling Series Win!

MIAMI — Some 3,000 souls live in La Sabana, Venezuela, a quaint seaside fishing village 65 miles east of Caracas. The speck on the map has two schools, one hospital and, of course, a ballfield. Home plate at the recently renovated Estadio Oscar Santiago Escobar is less than 400 yards — or about five long tosses from one of the area’s major-league baseball players — from the beach.

In dead-center field, the fence juts in dramatically to avoid a graveyard, resulting in one of the more bizarrely shaped diamonds you’ll ever see. It’s a beautiful place in a beautiful place. [ Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season ] This field, this community, has raised and molded a disproportionate number of professional ballplayers, some of whom are part of the same extended family.

Eight big leaguers have come from this town of 3,000, and that’s the result of much more than random chance. It’s about baseball in the blood and in the bloodlines. And on Monday, nearly 1,400 miles from home, two of those proud Sabaneros, cousins Ronald Acuña Jr.

and Maikel Garcia, propelled their country to its biggest win ever on the international stage. With a trip to the World Baseball Classic title game on the line, Venezuela bested a Cinderella Italy squad 4-2 behind a rousing seventh-inning comeback led by Acuña and Garcia. The win earned Venezuela a ticket to the nation’s first WBC final .