Vizquel ready to lead star-studded Venezuela

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Omar Vizquel and Carlos Guillen are two former Major League shortstops who were nearly traded for each other 13 years ago. But the Mariners and Indians couldn’t resolve their differences after Vizquel’s failed physical, nullifying their deal.

It’s a fitting memory, given the disagreements last week that nearly scuttled their partnership as manager and general manager for Venezuela’s entry in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Yet as they sat together for a media session Monday at baseball’s Winter Meetings, they characterized the week-long dispute and rally by players to support Vizquel as a misunderstanding that they had put behind them.

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They see the game and the team the same way, they insisted, and can put together a squad that can contend after struggling in pool play four years ago. They have the star power with Jose Altuve, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez, Felix Hernandez and Salvador Perez, and they say they have the chemistry.

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“The best thing that we have for this Classic is the union between the players,” Vizquel said. “They really have been working together. From what I see from them in pictures, they’re barbecuing [together] and they’re talking. They really have been talking as a group to get this going.”

Now, Vizquel and Guillen have to do the same. Once they met in person last week in Maracay, Vizquel said, they hashed out the differences that threatened to derail them.

“When you work with somebody that you haven’t worked [with] before, there is a new dynamic of things, …

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