SPORTS

Verlander has strong response to disturbing video of ex-Tigers prospect Vasquez

Tony Paul
The Detroit News
Danry Vasquez is pictured in 2013 with the West Michigan Whitecaps.

Justin Verlander had some choice words – and one choice emoji – for a former Tigers prospect who was caught on camera beating his then-fiancee.

Security-camera footage of Danry Vasquez striking a woman in the face several times in a Texas ballpark stairway back in 2016 has made the rounds on the Internet in the last two days, eliciting shock and outrage.

Verlander tweeted out late Wednesday night:

"(Bleep) you man," Verlander, the former Tigers ace, tweeted, the bleep an emoji of a middle finger. "I hope the rest of your life without baseball is horrible. You deserve all that is coming your way!"

The 1-minute, 9-second video first was obtained by KRTS in Corpus Christi, Texas, and went viral when TMZ posted it.

The video shows Vasquez and his then-fiancee, identified as Fabiana Perez, walked into a ballpark stairway. As soon as the door closed behind Vasquez, he smacked Perez twice. After they walked down the first flight of stairs, he hit her again. Then, after another flight of stairs, Vasquez hit her once more, the last blow knocking her to her knees.

Each hit from Vasquez knocked Perez's glasses off her head.

The incident occurred in the summer of 2016, when Vasquez, 24, was playing with Double-A Corpus Christi, a Houston Astros affiliate.

The Astros released him shortly after the incident, for which Vasquez was sentenced to anger-management courses because Perez didn't want to press charges. She recently told Univision that she regrets not pressing charges against Vasquez, who now is married to another woman.

Vasquez hasn't been with a major-league organization since Houston released him; he caught on with an independent ballclub in Pennsylvania, but was released this week when the video circulated.

Vasquez was signed by the Tigers as a 17-year-old out of Venezuela, and spent parts of three years in Detroit's system. He had six home runs and 40 RBIs in 97 games at Single-A West Michigan in 2013, before he was traded to Houston.

Ben Verlander, Justin's younger brother and a one-time Tigers minor-leaguer, weighed in, too.

"Played with this guy my first spring training," Ben Verlander wrote. "Absolutely infuriates me watching this video. Literally sick to my stomach."

tpaul@detroitnews.com

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