Urbina's Mother Rescued in Venezuela!

Good news for all of you Detroit Tiger fans, and Venezuela fans, and human being fans. The mother of Tiger pitcher Ugueth Urbina, Maura Villarreal, was rescued by Venezuelan police after having been kidnapped 5 1/2 months ago. Apparently it was quite an operation, with the cops sneaking up on an abandoned tourist camp where she was held and engaging in a shootout with the kidnappers. One kidnapper was killed. Sra. Villarreal said that she was treated neither well nor poorly during her 5 1/2 months of captivity.

The Detroit Free Press had lots of the details on the operation, while the Ann Arbor News (at least the online version) just had a few short sentences about Sra. Villarreal being rescued, and spent the rest of the article speculating on how it might affect the Tigers' 2005 season. Gotta keep those priorities straight.