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| The Pittsburgh Pirates' baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. Photo via Pittsburgh Pirates |
By:
Steve Uhlmann
Produced & edited by: Tim Tripp
Every year, hundreds of teenage boys in the Dominican
Republic pack their bags and take part in a rite of passage: professional
baseball tryouts.
Before they take the field, the dream seems so real. The
fame, the honor, the money are all there for the taking. As they field grounders and fly balls, only a
few scouts watch. Given the stakes, it may seem more like 40,000 screaming fans
during a World Series game to these young men.
If the scouts like what they see, a contract and an
opportunity to play in a team-affiliated development camp awaits. If not, it’s
time to hitchhike to another locale to give it another try.
Ever since Cuban immigrants escaping war in the late 1800s
brought the game to the small island country, the Dominican Republic and
baseball have had a close marriage. Even the poorest of the developing
country’s youth learn the game with whatever they can get their hands on. Broomsticks were used as bats, rolled up
socks served as balls and old milk cartons become gloves.
Ozzie Virgil Sr. became the first Dominican to play in Major
League Baseball in 1958, and since then many young boys have looked to
professional baseball as their ticket out of the slums.
While adding their name to the ranks with superstars such as
David Ortiz, Nelson Cruz and Jose Reyes may appeal to wide-eyed young people,
it’s not a very realistic proposition. Dr. Roberto Gonzalez Echevaria, a Cuban
native who has devoted his life to studying Latin America culture, has done
extensive work exploring baseball’s place in Dominican culture. He feels that
this irrational thinking.
“It’s delusional thinking,” he said. “Hundreds and hundreds
of kids sign on to pro teams yet only three or four out of that hundred make
the big leagues. What happens to the rest? It becomes a problem.”
A big part of this problem is that many children out of
school in order to pursue baseball. Economics professor Dr. Julia Paxton spent
time in the Dominican Republic studying the schooling habits of teenagers in
the country. The results she found were alarming.
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| Shortstop Jose Reyes, a native of the Dominican Republic. Photo via Wikipedia Commons |
“The Dominican has high gender disparity for secondary
education,” she said. “There were much more girls attending secondary school
than males and a lot of that has to do with baseball.”
MLB rules prohibit teams from signing players until they are
16 years old, but many abandon school before that to train on their own.
For those young men lucky enough to sign with a professional
team, a long laborious road awaits. All 30 MLB teams have training academies in
the Dominican Republic where they try to find the best players to bring to
their minor league systems in the United States.
While the word “academy” is used as a title, there is not
much learning happening besides baseball.
“These academies do try to provide a little education, some
English, to help them prepare for the U.S.,” Dr. Echevaria said. “But
essentially they are baseball factories with cheap labor.”
Young Players Subject to Outside Dangers
Besides having to battle every day for their future, there
are many other dangers for young players in the Dominican. The threat of
buscones, or street agents wanting to take advantage of prospects and their
money, is always a concern.
“There were scandals with these men that were serving as
unofficial intermediaries between families, kids and baseball teams,” Echevaria
said. “They pay a small sum to cover these kids and then try to pocket all the
bonuses.”
Performance-enhancing drug use is also prevalent. In 2013,
15 of 44 players suspended for PED’s were Dominican. Echevaria said that the
desperate circumstances many face cause them to take drastic measures to get an
edge.
“You hear the horror stories,” he said. “They try to control
it but it’s still a big problem.”
When Charles Farrell traveled with the MLB to investigate
team-owned Dominican baseball academies in 2000, he and the others could not
believe what they saw.
“The teams had no idea what was going on at the academies,”
he said. “The conditions were poor, poor nutrition and no education.”
That’s when Farrell and a group of associates decided to
move to San Pedro de Macoris to begin the Dominican Republic Sports and
Education Academy. The school would give students a safe place to train for
baseball, but with a primary focus on post-secondary education.
“We want to inspire future generations with the power of
education,” he said. “They can use their baseball skills to get a college
scholarship or have the foundation to study to be a doctor, an engineer. They
can have an impact on their country beyond just being baseball players.”
The pilot class in 2013 has 15 students and the academy is
ready to expand to over 100 next year. The complex will feature
state-of-the-art dormitories, classrooms and baseball facilities for students
to practice. Curriculum consists of English, life skills and financial planning
to prepare students for college and beyond.
The MLB is also drawing out plans for the 98 percent of team
academy enrollees that will never get a chance to play in the United States and
must re-enter the Dominican workforce. A big problem for most of these youth is
that they lack the skills needed to get careers that pay well. They have no
choice but taking low-wage jobs that continue the cycle of poverty for many.
“It’s our responsibility to make sure that these young men
become productive members of society,” MLB public relations officer Mike Teevan
said. “We’ve retooled the way our teams educate players to make sure they have
the tools needed to succeed.”
Farrell said it’s tough to get parents on board with any
long-term education plan given the time commitment.
“A lot of times it’s the mother and father who push their
kids into baseball for a career because that means alleviation from poverty,”
he said. “It takes a parent also understanding they need their son an
education.”
He says that reaction has been positive, however, and there
are still plenty of kids interested in the program going forward. The goal is
to be successful enough to reform the way young baseball talent is treated
there.
“A lot of people call us dreamers, illusionists, but we are
succeeding,” he said. “These young men are going to become the heroes of the
countries beyond just baseball.”
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