Prospects in the Texas Rangers organization are in potential legal trouble in the Dominican Republic for an alleged hazing incident.
The players were alleged to have sexually assaulted an underage teammate. No formal charges have been pressed, but according to a report, that will change.
“While prosecutors in the Dominican Republic have yet to press charges for the alleged assault, they told the court they intend to charge at least four players who held down a teammate and masturbated him, sources told Yahoo Sports,” a report from Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports said.
Per Passan, two of the players likely to be facing charges are Rougned Odor, the younger brother of Texas’ current second baseman (with the same name), and catching prospect Yoho Cazo.
Per Passan’s report, the incident was caught on Snapchat.
“A 10-second clip of video, obtained by Yahoo Sports, shows the alleged victim in a Rangers shirt and Rangers shorts laying on a bed with his arms held behind his back and his legs pinned down,” Passan said. “At least four men are seen in addition to the alleged victim, whose penis is exposed, grabbed and maneuvered underneath a hand towel. All of the men in the video, including the alleged victim, are seen laughing.”
He also added that “The alleged assault was one of a number of hazing incidents of Venezuelan and Colombian players, some of whom were younger than 18, according to sources.”
A lot more will likely be revealed about this incident in the coming days, weeks, and months. But these incidents are the kinds of things that usually have serious impact beyond just the organization in question.
Hazing is fairly common in sports. Oftentimes, it’s a relatively harmless form of hazing, such as making rookies carry veteran’s bags, or having rookies dress up in ridiculous costumes during a road trip. But it should never get anywhere near sexual assault.
If these allegations are proven true, we will likely see a large anti-hazing initiative through MLB, and other sports. This kind of thing has no place in sports, or in society. Unfortunately, it does happen. But when it does, organizations will usually go to great lengths to ensure that it doesn’t happen to them.