www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 16, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

The New York Mets have given Venezuelan pitcher, Ober Moreno a second chance to make good, hoping that he has recovered from a worrying arm injury.

Moreno’s Venezuelan club, Los Leones de Caracas report that Moreno was made a free agent by his former club, Kansas City Royals where he had progressed from minor leagues to the big tent in 1999.

• Since then injuries have plagued Moreno but he says he’s on the way to full recovery.

Last season, Moreno pitched for the Royals Gulf Coast league opening two games. His only appearance in the major league took place in 2000 where he played 7 games with a 5.63 earned average.

In other news, Venezuelan pitcher, Joan Lopez is reported to be going to Taiwan this season, passing off a contract in Italy where he played for Modena last year earning a 2.98 average in 51.1 turns. He then played for the Saltillo Saraperos in Mexico ending with a 4.45 earned average after 32.1 turns on the mound.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 16, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Accion Democratica (AD) leader, Henry Ramos Allup has slammed other opposition parties for their silence over rogue CTV leader Carlos Ortega's "diplomatic asylum" in Costa Rica ... commenting that they've never experienced what it is like to live under a dictatorship.

AD is the only political party to have thrown in its lot with Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions (CTV) president, Carlos Ortega with both the CTV and AD staging a token protest supporting the self-exiled Ortega ... who forced AD and the disloyal opposition to play to his and rogue Fedecamaras president Carlos Fernandez’ tune.

• Ramos Allup has also hit out against CTV leaders ... especially Pablo Castro ... who, he claims, are fighting for the spoils in Ortega’s absence.

“The CTV presidency is not the inheritance of a dead man … it’s tragic and pathetic that they're thinking of substituting Ortega ... who came up from the grassroots … they're envious of his leadership.”

AD leader, Timoteo Zambrano ... who has already made two gaffes in two days calling on the International Red Cross to find an allegedly “disappeared” First Lady and making Carlos Ortega honorary AD president to cock a snoot at former AD kingpin, Rafael Marin ... has thanked Costa Rican Ambassador Ricardo Lizano for holding out "diplomatic asylum" to Ortega, following the tradition of receiving such distinguished exiles as AD founder Romulo Betancourt.

www.vheadline.com Posted: Sunday, March 16, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

President Hugo Chavez Frias has opened a DIY vegetable garden project at the Fuerte Tiuna military barracks (where the Ayala battalion is housed) as an effort to get people to grow food in spaces that have been abandoned.

It's part of the President's “Pride in Venezuela” project, which was started off by giving small provincial sharecroppers animal stock and seed to help them grow subsistence crops in a home garden.

At the same time, in Caracas, the Municipal Services Corporation has initiated a novel vegetable patch program near the Hilton Hotel in Paseo Vargas.  Service chief Jose Rodriguez says the idea is to plant and sow lettuce, paprika, coriander and Swiss chard ... the San Agustin cooperative is in overall charge of the project, which hopes to produce quick-cycle vegetables on 4,500 sq. meters of earth in 30-45 days ... an underground water cistern has been built for irrigation purposes by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a first stage “creating social use for idle spaces.”

The idea of family or cooperative vegetable gardens is not new in Venezuela ... in the 80s a Roman Catholic priest started a gardening project among peasant families in Lara State farming district that was a huge success.

www.sltrib.com .... Venezuela: After two months of business and labor strikes and what many regard as a wholesale breakdown of authority, police statistics indicate an explosion in street crime across Venezuela, with Caracas experiencing the brunt. Venezuela is now the second-most dangerous country in the hemisphere behind war-racked Colombia, according to the Pan-American Health Organization. .....

waymoresports.thestar.com Mar. 16, 2003. 01:00 AM Richard Griffin

Wells the author hurls literary junk ball

DUNEDIN, Fla.—The David Wells storm is still swirling. The early book reviews are in and, thankfully for the first-time author, nobody's perfect. The fine the Yankees imposed on him will do nothing but promote sales of the book.

Perfect I'm Not, available in bookstores this week, is a quick, readable, self-serving, butt-kicking, butt-kissing ode to sports excess and Wells' perceived place in the centre of the baseball universe. Truthfully, his self-importance is grossly overstated. The importance of being Boomer has never been more important — to Boomer.

There aren't many surprises in the book. As expected, Wells fawns all ovcr George Steinbrenner, Yankee stars past and present, baseball friends David Cone and Kirk Gibson, and various and sundry rock-and-rollers and show-business types.

What will come as a surprise to Jays fans is the depth of Wells' disdain for all things Canadian. He rants against everything from Toronto fans and media to Pat Gillick, Gord Ash, Cito Gaston, Exhibition Stadium, the SkyDome, the ordeal of clearing customs, the RCMP, etc.

What doesn't come as a surprise is his belief that nothing he has ever done in life, in terms of anti-social behaviour, deserves an apology. For example:

Punching his older sister in the face as a youth and breaking her nose is explained by the fact that his late, sainted mother, "Attitude Annie," a long-time biker chick with the Hells Angels, said his sibling deserved it.

Leaving his Venezuelan Winter League team as a rookie without notifying either the team's owners or the Blue Jays organization is explained away as the result of too many cockroaches and fears for his personal safety, even though everyone else who headed to Venezuela that winter hung in.

The famed SkyDome incident of throwing the ball into the right-field corner when Gaston tried to remove him from a game and then following up by swearing at his manager and engaging in clubhouse fisticuffs is all Cito's fault for demanding he throw a changeup to a lefty.

Backing out of a handshake agreement with Jerry Colangelo on a free-agent contract with the Diamondbacks after the 2001 season is justified by his belief that his destiny is as a Yankee and, as we all know, even ethics and honesty can't stand in the way of destiny.

Breaking his hand in a brawl after the funeral of his mother in 1997 is explained away by the fact that the two guys he fought cheesed him off by hiding the keys of his rental car under the front seat. Plus, they were as big as he was. He claimed he had not had a drink before the fight but did admit to getting drunk later, to combat the effects of his throbbing hand.

A fight with police officers outside a Chicago bar in the company of fellow Jays rookie Todd Stottlemyre is explained by Wells' contention that he was abused by a little cop letting his Napoleonic feelings get the best of him. Boomer, of course, did nothing wrong but was punished by the Jays sending him to Syracuse.

Wells says he got just one hour of sleep before his perfect game, as per this excerpt: "5:00 a.m. Drunk, exhausted, reeking, reeling, I flop into bed in a comatose heap. Brandon (his son) dive-bombs me at 6:05 a.m. He's loud. He wants breakfast. I want to die." Seven hours later, he was on the mound at Yankee Stadium.

Wells claims David Cone called him from the Yankee Stadium dugout while Roger Clemens was being pounded by Anaheim in '99, with the crowd screaming "Boom-er, Boom-er, Boom-er." The allegation casts Cone's professionalism in a bad light. He has denied the incident ever occurred.

Which — along with Wells' backtracking on his statement that "25 to 40 per cent of major leaguers use steroids" and his recent revision that maybe he was only hung over, not half-drunk, for his perfect game — invites the question: How much of this opus can be trusted as actual history and how much of it is self-serving pap written to be controversial?

Wells has apologized to the Yankees organization and his teammates, claiming he never meant to offend anyone — except, it seems, the Blue Jays and their fans. It's an easy read with enough behind-the-scenes recollections to keep it interesting, but Wells should have waited until he retired. His constant backtracking on what is purported to be an autobiography is unseemly.