Amid the chaos and misery that have engulfed Venezuela lies a strange parcel of tranquility, tucked within a valley surrounded by poplar trees and mountains some 20 miles south of the Caribbean coast.

It is a field populated by dozens of lanky teenage boys who are spending this particular evening — as they often do — galloping around the grass in pursuit of an oval ball.

These impoverished Venezuelans are training in the skills of a sport not often seen in a South American nation that’s mad about soccer, baseball and horse racing: They are playing rugby.

Their game is taking place on the grounds of a hacienda, a picturesque country estate that includes a distillery and sugarcane plantation, in the Aragua Valley about 40 miles west of the capital Caracas.

The estate belongs to Santa Teresa, makers of Venezuela’s oldest brand of rum, which has — its website proudly proclaims — withstood “wars, revolutions, invasions, even dictators” since it first started distilling more than 200 years ago.

Rugby is one more albeit unusual play in the rum-maker’s history of negotiating the country’s turbulent times, this time by helping turn its neighborhood away from violent crime, especially by gangs.

Watching this evening’s training session is Guillermo Morales, 21, a keen rugby player who would normally be on the field but has been sidelined by an injury. “Here, you don’t see what you see at home, like guns and drugs,” says Morales, who lives nearby. “Here, we are away from all that.”

Surviving Venezuela’s mayhem these days is “really tough,” he says. “You just want to cry and cry.” For him, coming here to play rugby in the safe haven of a country estate provides a welcome escape from reality.

The story of how rum and rugby came to be mixed in this part of Venezuela begins in 2003, and has since evolved into local legend. Criminal gangs, hungry for guns, were particularly active in the surrounding communities at that time. Rivalries abounded; homicides were common.

According to Bernardo López, manager of the Santa Teresa Foundation, three gang members broke into the hacienda, in the hope of stealing the security guards’ weapons.

The men were captured. Instead of handing them over to the police, for certain imprisonment, the rum-maker’s chief executive, Alberto Vollmer, offered them a chance to atone for their crime by working unpaid at the distillery for a few months instead.

López says the gang members agreed. Yet when they eventually reported for work, they showed up with their whole gang — some 20 other men — “saying that if [Vollmer] was offering jobs, they wanted jobs for everyone.”

Eager to build bridges with a community with soaring unemployment, and to reduce the threat of gang crime, Vollmer took them in, says López.

Vollmer is a descendant of a German merchant who migrated to Venezuela in 1830. He is also a rugby enthusiast — having played as a schoolboy — who believes this rough and rugged sport is character-building because it helps nurture respect, sportsmanship, discipline and humility.

It would therefore be a good idea, Vollmer concluded, to introduce the gangs to the game.

This became the starting point of what became Project Alcatraz, a rehabilitation program that Santa Teresa has since expanded to include vocational training, psychological counseling and formal education. The name is both a nod to the notorious California prison and to the gannet bird, which is what alcatraz translates to in English.

Some 2,000 mostly poor youngsters from the surrounding districts regularly play rugby at the hacienda as part of a preventive program to deter them from joining gangs.

“They fall in love with our rugby,” says Luis Daniel “Chino” López, coach of the youth team, as he gazes at his players out on the field wrestling over the ball.

The hacienda is a kind of refuge for them, he says — although the realities of life in Venezuela sometimes intrude. “They sometimes say ‘Oh, Chino, I’m hungry,’ but we help them with that. Sometimes we give them food.”

According to the Santa Teresa Foundation, the Alcatraz project has sharply lowered the homicide rate in the locality in recent years. Crime, however, remains a problem.

Gertrudis, a middle-aged widow who lives nearby — and who wants her full name withheld for fear of reprisals — says no one in the neighborhood dares go outside after 7 p.m. for fear of being robbed or assaulted.

She concedes the rugby at the Santa Teresa hacienda might help lower crime, but appears far more concerned about her daily ordeal of lining up to get food from 4 a.m., regular power outages and Venezuela’s chronic shortage of medicines.

Project Alcatraz has expanded to include hundreds of prison inmates. Its representatives regularly visit Venezuelan penitentiaries to organize rugby games and recruit players.

Santa Teresa now hosts a one-day rugby 7-a-side tournament for inmates. At the most recent, in December, 13 prison teams took part, escorted to the estate by prison guards and surrounded by a security ring of National Guard soldiers.

“Imagine the atmosphere,” says Bernardo López of the Santa Teresa Foundation. “We have 300 inmates in the hacienda, and their handcuffs are taken off. They exchange their uniforms for rugby clothes, and start to play.

“You can see their families cheering from the bleachers. There are moms, who have come to meet their sons and children who’re able to see their fathers. Afterwards, they can hug, and talk.”

None of this work has been made easier as Venezuela grapples with economic collapse and a political crisis in which the U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó has been leading a campaign to oust President Nicolás Maduro, arguing that he was illegally reelected.

As the country’s instability deepens, getting gangs to agree to participate in Project Alcatraz has become harder, says López.

“Gangs right now in Venezuela are not the gangs that we used to manage in 2003,” he says. “Gangs now are huge. We’re talking about hundreds of men.”

Yet he’s undeterred. Rehabilitation and rugby will continue, he says.

“We don’t do this to sell rum. We sell rum to do this. This is our purpose.”

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Updated at 6:37 p.m. ET

Autopsy results for Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs revealed the presence of opioids and alcohol in his body after he was found dead in a Texas hotel room on July 1.

The toxicology report released Friday by the Tarrant County medical examiner says the cause of death was a mixture of “alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication” and that Skaggs essentially choked on his vomit while under the influence.

Skaggs’ body was found in his room while the Angels were preparing to play the Texas Rangers. His death is still under investigation by local authorities. A statement released by Skaggs’ family includes mention that an Angels employee may have been involved, and according to The Los Angeles Times, the family says it won’t rest until it learns the truth about who supplied the drugs.

“We were unaware of the allegation and will investigate,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said.

The Angels tweeted, “Tyler was and always will be a beloved member of the Angels Family and we are deeply saddened to learn what caused this tragic death. Angels Baseball has provided our full cooperation and assistance to the Southlake Police as they conduct their investigation.”

Skaggs was drafted by the Angels in 2009 and traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Angels reacquired him for the 2014 season and since then he had a record of 25-32.

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Just over a week after Luis Castillo and Octavio Dotel headlined a list of suspects named in the Dominican Republic’s recent drug trafficking bust, a local judge has cleared the retired MLB players of money laundering charges. Judge José Alejandro Vargas decided Thursday that the prosecution had failed to show enough evidence to implicate Castillo or Dotel.

Dotel was released on bail Thursday after nine days in detention. He still stands accused of possessing illegal weapons at the time he was arrested, a charge that was not directly connected to the drug bust. As he left the court hearing in Santo Domingo, the former pitcher flashed a quick smile for nearby members of the media.

In announcing the bust last week, the country’s attorney general, Jean Alain Rodríguez, linked the two former major leaguers to an alleged drug kingpin named César Emilio Peralta, also known as “César the abuser.” Peralta and his alleged network of drug runners and money launderers were the focus of the Dominican investigation — one that was supported by the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration in the U.S.

The U.S. Treasury Department also moved to designate Peralta, his associates and several related entities, including several nightclubs, as “significant foreign narcotics traffickers.” Dotel and Castillo were not on Treasury’s list, however.

Dotel’s attorney, Manuel Sierra, told ESPN Deportes that authorities owe his client a public apology — and that he expects nothing to come of the weapons charge. “We have the documentation that proves that it is not illegal,” Sierra said, “and we will present it to the court in a timely manner.”

“Octavio will finally sleep in his own bed after the nightmare of the last few days,” he added.

Dotel played 14 years for 13 teams during his time in MLB. Castillo, an infielder, won three Gold Gloves, made three All-Star Games and took home the 2003 World Series with the then-Florida Marlins.

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As the 2019 U.S. Open tennis tournament ramps up in Queens, N.Y., this week, all eyes will be on the elite athletes competing. But it’s hard to miss the anonymous people darting back and forth on the court.

Each match has six ballpersons: a pair at either end of the court and a pair at the net. They have to run after balls out of play, quickly and accurately roll them to the backcourt and give the players towels and balls to serve — all as unobtrusively as possible.

With such proximity to world-class tennis, many ballpersons come back year after year. But you have to get the job first.

In early June, the hopefuls — most of whom play tennis themselves — are put through their paces in a tryout. There’s a lot of running, but athleticism isn’t the only criterion for selection.

“The first thing we’re looking for is someone with good focus,” says Tina Taps, who has managed U.S. Open ballpersons for 30 years. “They have to be calm. They have to think about what’s going on. They have to take a full picture in their brain of all, every single part, of the court: back corners, the net, the officials, the chair official.”

Moera Kamimura, 14, got selected for callbacks, held a few weeks after tryouts. She’s on her junior varsity tennis team in Ridgefield, Conn. On court, Moera has a look of quiet concentration, standing still, then scurrying after the ball.

“Speed is really important,” she says. “And if you can’t run fast, you won’t be able to be at net.”

Moera makes the squad and attends three training sessions, which cover all potential game situations. Supervisor Tiahnne Noble is the instructor.

“Our communication is all silent and movements, OK?” she says. “So, you guys need to be switched on and need to be making sure at the end of every point, you’re knowing where all those six balls are. You need to try and be that one step ahead.”

Nicholas Zikos also started at the U.S. Open when he was 14 — the minimum age. He’s now 27 and a financial adviser but continues to return every year. He has been on center court for several men’s finals.

“We have the best seat, best standing position in the house,” Zikos says. “And yeah, there are moments where you’re like, ‘Whoa, yeah … still have a job to do.’ But it just becomes natural after a certain point. It’s great.”

The U.S. Open is the only Grand Slam tournament without an upper age limit for its ballpersons. Tony Downer, from Stamford, Conn., is a retired venture capital equity investor — and of the 300 ballpersons, he’s the oldest, at 61. A huge tennis fan, Downer is more than happy to work for minimum wage just to be a few feet away from the finest players in the world.

“This is a big money-losing event, between the tolls, my wife’s tickets, the souvenirs, etc.,” he says. “I’m not doing it for the money.”

The vets and rookies all start a week before the tournament proper, joining together to work the qualifying rounds. Moera says she felt good about her first match.

“It was nerve-wracking at first, but I think I kind of got used to it once we went into a few rounds,” she says. “They were great players, and just to be there and watch them and be able to serve them was pretty cool, I think.”

And it’s not lost on the players either. Reigning women’s champion Naomi Osaka says she appreciates the support.

“I see them sprinting back and forth, and I’m just like, ‘Wow!’ ” Osaka says. “Like, I kind of want to offer them water sometimes, and a towel. And I know that they’re here for the love of tennis, so I’m grateful for them.”

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Man Kaur started running in 2009, when she was in her 90s — it was her son’s idea — and began racking up medals. We first wrote about her when she was 101. Is she still a track and field star?

At 103, Man Kaur is not only going strong, she’s getting others to follow in her footsteps.

India’s oldest female athlete is spending her summer coaching 30 young athletes.

Kaur and her 81-year-old son and trainer, Gurdev Singh, were invited for two weeks to several universities in Baru Sahib in the mountains of India, but their methods made such an improvement in the students’ performance, they were asked to stay through September.

Kaur famously follows a strict diet regimen designed by Singh including homemade soy milk and kefir, wheatgrass juice, nuts, lentils and chapatis made from sprouted wheat. That’s the kind of nutritional advice they’re sharing with the students.

This invitation came on the heels of Kaur’s participation in the World Masters Athletics Championships in Poland earlier this year, where she won gold in all four events she competed in: shot put, javelin, 60-meter dash and 200-meter run.

Though she was the only competitor in her age category for all four events, for the 60-meter dash, she had company from other categories: two sprightly 85-year-olds and three 90-year-olds. Though they weren’t competing for the prize in her age bracket, they ran alongside her (and eventually ahead of her).

At last year’s World Masters event, the diminutive great-grandmother, who is just under 5 feet tall, clinched the gold in the javelin throw as well as the 200-meter race.

In 2017, while participating in World Masters Games held at Auckland, she finished the 100-meter run in 74 seconds. “But in Poland she improved her speed and finished the 60-meter dash in 36 seconds and felt great. She thanked the Almighty who gave her enough courage to do this,” says Singh, who acts as an interpreter for his mother, who mostly speaks Punjabi.

Ten years after she first started running, Kaur still loves it, according to her son. She isn’t thinking of retiring and Singh says she still thinks she can improve her performance.

“She enjoys the company of her admirers,” her son adds. “Every time she participates, she feels proud that people around the world feel inspired.”

The year has not been all fun and games, though. Kaur was in the hospital with gallstones this August and her osteoporosis has been causing her back pain, says her son. Still, she loves winning and is happiest on the track, where she says she forgets all her ailments.

Next stop: Malaysia, where both mother and son will compete in their age brackets at the Asian Masters Athletics Championships in December.

Editor’s note: Now you may be thinking … is Man Kaur really 103? She doesn’t have proof of her age but her oldest child does. When her firstborn’s birth certificate was issued 83 years ago, Kaur was 20, so you do the math.

Chhavi Sachdev is a journalist based in Mumbai. Contact her @chhavi.

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