NY Times article and thought it would be of interest to Latino Baseball Fans.
This conversation, however, plays out very differently in
Latin America. Yes, the Major Leagues are also an impossible dream for
a Latino child, but the grim reality is that he is unlikely to become
anything else that will allow him make a decent, if humdrum, living.
For him, the dream of baseball can be literally all or nothing.
Latino
players make up 23 percent of major league rosters (and this doesn't
include Puerto Ricans,
who are American citizens). This supply of
talent has become increasingly mechanized: for years
now teams have run
"baseball academies," mainly in the Dominican Republic but also in
Venezuela. The academies train and rate young players (sometimes the
recruiting begins when they are only 10) who are signed for a pittance,
compared with American prospects.
Major League Baseball
pays the Dominican Republic $14 million a year for the rights to run 30
academies. They serve the role of high school and college teams in the
United States, except that the only academic component they have is in
their name. A devastating description of the program is
given in a new
book, "Stealing Lives," by Arturo J. Marcano Guevara and David P.
Fidler. The writers followed Alexis Quiroz, a Venezuelan prospect who
was sent to the Chicago Cubs academy in the Dominican Republic and,
after several injuries and poor medical care, found his life utterly
ruined.
The issue has also drawn the attention of Gov.
George Pataki of New York, after two Dominican prospects, hoping for an
athletic edge, injected themselves with steroids intended for cattle
and died. Mr. Pataki called on Major League Baseball to monitor its
teams' Latin American operations more
closely and begin drug testing of
players. The league, however, has refused to comment, and the players'
union says it has no role in incidents outside the United States.
Drug
testing is a good first step, but the truth is that the worst drug
Major League Baseball distributes among Latino boys is the notion that
they can become the next Sammy Sosa. This is a lethal hallucinogenic
that keeps them from setting their minds to learning a trade or
profession. Desperation
to become wildly affluent major leaguers leads
most these youngsters to destitution.
This is even
usually the case for the especially gifted players who sign a
professional contract and
get to wear, for a few precious games, the
cherished uniform of a minor league version of the Yankees or Cubs. For
every Pedro Martinez, there are hundreds of Dominican boys who are
cannon fodder — academies are stocked with young players who even the
coaches likely realize
have no chance at the big time, but who are
needed to fill out rosters.
Of course, baseball is big
business, and in the current American culture the only valid argument
seems to be what the market will bear — ethical values are an
afterthought. So the attitude is this:
if the Dominican Republic, an
independent country, does not protect its young citizens from rapacious
baseball entrepreneurs, that is its problem. An American-based industry
like Major League Baseball should be free to exploit Latino children as
it would any natural resource.
But these are human
beings, actually children, and morals should cross national boundaries.
Moreover, Major League Baseball traffics in values (some call them
"American values") as a means
of selling its product. Thus public
officials like Governor Pataki have every right to intervene in the
name of the American public, which buys into those values and pays for
the product that Major
League Baseball offers. Dominicans taking animal
steroids are the responsibility of organized
baseball, whether it
admits it or not.
Yet not only does the league seem
unconcerned about the bad news in Latino baseball, it also ignores the
good news. The Montreal Expos, a bankrupt franchise taken over by the
league and put on the auction block, are scheduled to play 22 "home"
games this year in San Juan, P.R. Even though a local consortium is
making a serious bid to buy the team, the league office has shown a
clear preference
for an American city, most likely Portland, Ore., or
Washington. Latinos, it seems, can be on teams, but can't have one of
their own.
It's time for the league to wake up. At a
time when the Yankees often field a team with six Latin Americans, when
nearly half of those signing minor league contracts are from outside
the United States, when the Anaheim Angels have been bought by a
Mexican-American, it seems that a Latin American franchise is
inevitable (but not one called the Expos, please). Baseball is too
dependent on talent to take Latin America for granted anymore. Someday,
perhaps sooner than you think,
we should have a Latino commissioner!
