Any turmoil the Mets have gone through in their history pales in comparison to the peril new catcher Wilson Ramos faced and survived early in his major league career.
The Mets’ latest free-agent signing admittedly feared he would be killed when he was kidnapped by four armed men in his hometown of Valencia and held for more than two days in a cabin in the Venezuelan mountains in November 2011, before he was rescued and returned to his family.
“The truth is that I’m happy to be out of the situation,” Ramos told the Washington Post in 2012, several months after the harrowing ordeal had ended. “I know it’s been a year and remembering it, it was a sad moment and I hope to get away from it and forget about it. It’ll be hard to totally forget something like that.
“… I love my country and being there, but after what happened, it’s hard to think about it and forget about it.”
Ramos, now 31, agreed to a two-year deal (plus a team option) worth $19 million guaranteed with the Mets over the weekend after hitting 15 homers with an .845 OPS in 111 games for Tampa Bay and Philadelphia last season, his ninth in the majors.
Shortly after completing his first full year with the Nationals in 2011, however, Ramos had been abducted outside his home in Venezuela and held for ransom before he was saved by armed commandos and the judicial police amid heavy gunfire.
“There were many shots fired. I couldn’t do anything but get under the bed, to pray, to cry, and then I felt a great relief when I heard the police yell my name. That’s when I responded because I couldn’t even speak,” Ramos told the Washington Post at the time. “It was impressive, something I had only seen in the movies. If it had not been for them, who knows what would have happened to me. I had just asked for God, at every moment, to get me back to my home.”
Ramos was the first major league player known to have been kidnapped in Venezuela, but in 2005, the mother of former big-league pitcher Ugueth Urbina had been held hostage there for more than five months.
Earlier this month, two former big leaguers from Venezuela, Luis Valbuena and Jose Castillo, were killed in a car crash in their native country caused by hijackers who later robbed them, according to officials.
The Mets will hold an introductory press conference for Ramos, a two-time All-Star, Tuesday morning at Citi Field.