Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
Former Major League Baseball pitcher Octavio Dotel was among 160 people injured in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday when the roof of an iconic nightclub collapsed. He would later die en route to the hospital, according to local media reports and MLB insider Hector Gomez. He was 51.
At least 44 people are reported dead in the roof collapse, ESPN reports, including Dotel and Nelsy Cruz, the governor of the northwestern province of Montecristi and sister of seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Nelson Cruz.
The roof reportedly collapsed at the Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo at around 12:44 a.m. during a merengue concert being performed by musician Rubby Perez. It wasn’t until six hours later that Octavio Dotel was able to be freed from the rubble. At last report, at least 100 people are estimated to still be missing, buried in the carnage.
Dotel was reportedly at the club with friends and former MLB players Henry Blanco, who played for the Seattle Mariners and the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Esteban German, who played for the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland A’s. Both Blanco and German had left the club before the roof collapse.
Octavio Dotel won the 2011 World Series as a member of the St. Louis Cardinals and the World Baseball Classic in 2011 with his teammates from the Dominican Republic. Dotel played for 13 different teams during his 15-year Major League Baseball career. In 2004, he notched 36 saves – 14 for the Houston Astros and 22 for the A’s. He had a 3.78 ERA in 758 games, striking out 1,143 hitters in 951 innings pitched. At the time of his retirement, Dotel had the best strikeout rate per nine innings (10.8) in the history of Major League Baseball for right-handed pitchers with at least 900 innings pitched.
President of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader, has declared a three-day national period of mourning in honor of those lost in the nightclub roof collapse. It is currently unclear what led to the collapse.
UPDATE: Hector Gomez now reports that former MLB player Tony Blanco, 43, also passed away due to the collapse of the roof of the Jet Set nightclub.
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