An interview with La Rochelle Buccaneers pitcher Wilce Nieves.
There’s a funny baseball saying – a dicho, as they say in Spanish – that’s widely used in countries like Cuba and Venezuela: La pelota es redonda pero viene en caja cuadrada.
The ball is round, but it comes in a square box. That’s the literal translation. But what the expression really means is that in baseball, anything can happen – a costly wild pitch; a two-out grand slam; a ninth-inning rally. The result is never guaranteed. Expect the unexpected, in other words.
But it’s not just on the field that things take unpredictable turns. Baseball careers can also be full of surprises, especially when new opportunities involve a change not just of cities, but of countries, continents, languages…
Best pitcher of the 2021 France Challenge
That’s exactly what happened last year to pitcher Wilce Nieves, the person, by the way, who taught me the expression la pelota es redonda. From his native Venezuela, the 29-year-old right-hander boarded a plane and headed to La Rochelle, on the French coast.
It was an act of faith, but one that paid off for all parties involved. And in the coming weeks, Nieves will make the trip again, to the delight of his coaches and teammates at the Buccaneers, who finished sixth last season in the 11-team D1 championship in France.
“The goal is to win, and to give La Rochelle a championship,” he notes.
“That’s the goal. It was also the objective last year. It didn’t happen. But we accomplished a lot of good things as a team, and it’s clear that this group can do even better.”
Signed at 17
Nieves hails from the city of San Fernando de Apure, in the Venezuelan plains – tierra llanera, he explains. That’s where he first put on a baseball glove and where, at the start of his teens and guided by a cousin, he was admitted to a baseball academy in the larger city of Maracaibo.
“They thought I could go further in baseball,” says Nieves about the coaches who ran the academy. And they were right, because in 2009, at the age of 17, the young pelotero catches the attention of Major League scouts and is offered the opportunity to sign a professional contract with the Chicago White Sox.
“I remember it well,” says Nieves. “Not the day I signed, but the day they told me they would take me. It started as a normal day for me. I was at practice, and the scout saw me and said he wanted to see me throw a bullpen. And then, at the end of the day, he contacted my agent and said they wanted to sign me.”
It had been the teenager’s goal, the thing he had worked so hard for. And yet, the event still took him by surprise.
“It was so full of emotion. Really,” explains Nieves. “I called my mother and father. ‘Congratulations, son. You’ve reached your goal,” they told me. “De aqui pa’lante el monte es oregano.”
That was another expression, apparently common in the Venezuelan campo, that Nieves taught me. “From now on, the mountain is all oregano,” which means the hard part is done; now is when the fun moments begin.
Lions and Tigers
In reality, the trials and tribulations of the young prospect were just beginning. With the White Sox, Nieves went to the Dominican Republic, where in three seasons of rookie ball, he posted a 12-10 record but failed to move up to the next level.
In other words, he never got the chance to play in the minor leagues in the United States, and in 2012, Nieves was released by the organization. The Tampa Bay Rays then signed him, allowing the pitcher to play one more season at the rookie level, this time in Venezuela, but in 2013, they too decided to let him go.
That’s the thing about professional baseball. It’s ruthless. The competition is fierce. Nieves, however, did not want to give up, and so he continued to work. He pitched in the Liga Nacional Bolivariana, a Venezuelan league for unaffiliated players, and in the country’s professional league as well, the LVBP, spending time with a number of different teams, including the Leones del Caracas, where Rouen Huskies’ ace Yoimer Camacho played last season.
Eventually, those opportunities also dried up, and in 2020, after already having spent a year without playing, Nieves began to wonder if he might be able to find a team to join in Europe. That’s when he received a message from La Rochelle pitcher Rayner Oliveres, a former Kansas City Royals prospect who had played with Nieves on the LVPB’s Caribes de Anzoátegui team.
“When Rayner wrote to me to ask if I would be interested in coming to La Rochelle, I immediately said ‘yes’, without hesitation! Because that’s what I wanted,” he says.
“I had been thinking about going to Europe for a while – anywhere: Spain, Italy, France… I wanted to come.”
Back with the Buccaneers
But this plan also came with a serious obstacle: the COVID pandemic, which abruptly paralyzed much of the world and ultimately led the French baseball governing body, the FFBS, to outright cancel the 2020 season.
Suddenly, baseball was no longer the priority. “A part of me felt really sad at first, because I wanted to play. I had already spent a year without playing. But then I realized how serious things were, that the coronavirus epidemic was a global thing,” he explains.
“And so from there, the goal was just to stay healthy, to be with my parents. I was also worried about my brothers and sisters, who are in Peru. But fortunately, everyone was fine – thank God!”
The Buccaneers let Nieves know that the offer to play in France would still be there for the 2021 season, and so last summer, the Venezuelan finally made the trip. It was his first time in Europe and the experience lived up to his expectations.
The level of play in D1 was perhaps a little better than he had expected. Nieves won and lost, finishing with a 6-5 record, a 3.41 ERA and 96 strikeouts. He also got to hit a few times, going four for nine (.444) with two RBIs and a run scored.
Nieves bonded, he says, with his teammates – despite a language barrier with the French and American players. “Baseball is universal, and so even if it’s just with gestures, you end up understanding each other,” he explains.
No wonder then that the talented pitcher is so thrilled to be returning to the Buccaneers for the 2022 season.
“I really had fun,” he says about his D1 debut. “I enjoyed every game, every inning I pitched. I also really liked the city. La Rochelle? It’s incredible. By day and by night, La Rochelle is just on another level.”
Benjamin Witte
