Pursuing AP Photo
By STEPHEN HAWKINS
AP Sports Writer
SURPRISE, Ariz. (AP) -Gold Glove shortstop Omar Vizquel caught something different in the offseason: an 11-foot anaconda.
And it wasn’t even a snake that happened to slither into Vizquel’s surrounding. The Texas Rangers infielder actually went out into the wildlands of his native Venezuela to find one of the world’s largest snakes.
“It was always a dream of mine to go out in the jungle and try to find an anaconda,” the 41-year-old Vizquel said. “You see so many movies and so many things about it. I saw it in the zoo and other places, but it would be great just to see it out in the wild.”
Vizquel obviously wasn’t swayed by the fact that in those movies, anacondas are usually wrapped around their victims and trying to squeeze them to death.
“It was just an awesome experience, a lot of adrenaline,” Vizquel said.
d to view all the other wildlife as well.
In a video Vizquel shared Friday in the Rangers clubhouse, he is with a guide when they find the anaconda in water just off the side of a dirt road. The snake, barely visible above the water line, is wrapped around a turtle.
The guide stepped into the shallow water, grabbed the anaconda by the tail and pulled it onto dry land.
“I was a little scared,” Vizquel admitted. “Those snakes can eat an alligator.”
Still, Vizquel was all smiles when he got his chance to take the agitated snake by the tail. Vizquel eventually held the head of the snake, its mouth opened wide and its body coiling. Anacondas are nonvenomous.
“I’m never going to confront him about anything because he might grab my neck,” joked Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton, who added that he dislikes snakes and spiders.
“I don’t mess around with snakes. Anybody who messes around with any wild stuff has got to be nuts,” reliever Eddie Guardado said. “Everybody has their own things they want to experience. Mine’s not going to be catching no exotic animal.”
The anaconda, described by Vizquel as a baby only about two years old and weighing 80-90 pounds, wasn’t harmed and was released back into the wild after the video and plenty of pictures had been taken.
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Anacondas have an average length of 20 feet and usually weigh more than 300 pounds.
Vizquel said it took only about four hours to find the anaconda, and that his group was lucky. He said there were other groups that went two days and never saw one.
“Everything was great,” Vizquel said. “We saw a lot of wild animals that I never saw before, like really close.”
The video on Vizquel’s laptop was replayed several times as different groups of players heard about the clip and came over to see their new teammate handling the snake. He also shared a picture slideshow that showed many of the other wild animals encountered on his four-day adventure.
Vizquel, an 11-time Gold Glove winner whose 2,654 games at shortstop are a major league record, is in the Rangers camp as a non-roster invitee. Texas wants him to be a utility infielder and a mentor to 20-year-old rookie shortstop Elvis Andrus, who is also from Venezuela.
The Rangers apparently didn’t know about Vizquel’s “wild” side.
“That’s scary hunting anacondas in the jungles of Venezuela,” manager Ron Washington said.
“How many Gold Gloves does he have?” Hamilton said. “If I was an infielder, I’d start trying to catch snakes.”
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