Greivis Vasquez is back in Brooklyn trying to get ready for the season opener four weeks away. He’s just returned from his hometown of Caracas, Venezuela, the South American nation now in the deepest economic crisis in its history. Young people roam the city, unemployed, impoverished, out of school.
It’s not just about “giving back,” he says. It’s about understanding that there but for the grace of God, he too could have fallen into the trap that has caught so many young Venezolanos.
“I could’ve been a thief, I could’ve killed people, I could’ve been in a gang, I could’ve done drugs, I could’ve done so many different things.