Kids from Yordano Ventura’s hometown will not have to learn to play baseball in a dilapidated stadium for much longer.
The Royals announced Monday that money from the ACE 30 Fund, which was established in Ventura’s memory shortly after his Jan. 22, 2017 death in his native Dominican Republic, would be used to renovate Estadio Municipal in Las Terrenas. Ventura learned to pitch in the stadium, and his casket was laid atop the mound there during his funeral procession last year.
The stadium has for so long operated in a state of disrepair that the local baseball association president said in a 2014 report by Dominincan newspaper Hoy that the country’s ministry of sports would take on some remodeling.