Jhonattan Vegas woke up Sunday morning and checked Twitter, much the way many of his fellow tour pros do. Only he wasn’t looking for the latest sports scores, a funny video or some other 140-character banter.
Venezuela—where Vegas was born, learned the game using a stick and a rock and still has many family members and friends—has been engulfed in deadly violence with protests over the election of a controversial new constitutional assembly led by the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro, who the opposition has said would turn the nation into a dictatorship.
“It’s always on my mind,” said Vegas, who was searching for an update on the latest news back home. “It hurts a lot, seeing the country the way it is, seeing a government that treats people that way when they don’t deserve it, just to remain in power, and all the suffering that even my family and friends that are having right now. It’s just not fair.”