[Editor's Note: In our quest to bring you unique insight into the world of sports that you can't find anywhere else, SportsJudge is pleased to welcome Brian Doyle to the team in 2009. Brian recently spent an extended period of time in the Dominican Republic and below you'll find Part 1 of his fascinating look into the world of baseball in the Dominican Republic. Be sure to check back next Sunday for Part 2 of 'Uncovering a Buscone'.]In late August I sat in front of a supermarket in Cabarate, the Dominican Republic, a small town on the north coast of the country that also happens to be one of the top kitesurfing and windsurfing locations in the world. This was, however, the Dominican Republic so today I sat on the curb with a Louisville Slugger that I’d schlepped with me when I first moved to the country. A handful of Dominicans stopped to talk baseball and ask me what position I play, if I knew how to throw a curveball and a change up, if I know how to recognize pitches quickly, and they never hesitated to apprise me of any of their baseball knowledge.
The first thing I learned about Dominicans, after a heated debate over whether or not Curt Schilling is um… “nice” and “upstanding” (a debate I won by taking the stance that he isn’t), is that their baseball knowledge is always up-to-date and, generally speaking, very accurate. In the age of the internet I’m able to stay up to the second on what’s going on too, but considering no one has reliable electricity, never mind a computer it’s pretty amazing how well informed everyone is, even on breaking baseball news.
After a few minutes of sitting on the curb, my friend Miguel showed up on his moto (which is most like a motorcycle/dirtbike combination) and took me to Islabon, a ten-minute ride away. We screamed small talk over the sound of the engine the whole way.
When we got to the field, it was flooded. A crew of six guys was doing its best to drain it so the team could start practicing. A horse lingered in center field and palm trees sprung up where a fence would normally be. The crew looked up to find Miguel, who is only twenty, walking with an American wearing a dirty Tampa Bay Devil Rays hat (that's me, and yes it’s a Devil Rays hat because it’s from before the team changed its name). One tossed me a bucket. “You might want to take your shoes off,” he told me as I was about to step in the mud.
Half an hour later we sprinkled sand on the infield and left it to dry. Practice continued in the outfield where I was left shagging fly balls while the horse eyed me for entering his territory. I took a few cuts and lined one off the pitcher’s shin. When I went to help him up he vehemently told me to back off, that he’s fine and that doesn’t need any help. Everyone else, including those playing defense behind him, howled with laughter at his plight, cracking jokes left and right. From that day on, during the few chances that I was able to get back to Islabon, I was part of the team (unfortunately, thanks to some unpleasant burns on my hands, I never got to play in a game, but I would have batted eighth and played center field, which is better than hypothetically batting ninth, right?).
It turns out the team I became a part of also happened to be part of an amateur baseball camp, helped run by Miguel. Mondays through Fridays anywhere from fifteen to thirty players showed up for morning and afternoon sessions. Miguel helps run the camp for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it gives him something to do. He’s twenty years old and he’s only able to get an eighth grade education because the Dominican government has no record of his birth certificate, which means he can’t enroll in high school. He has no surviving parents to declare his birth either. No birth certificate means he technically doesn’t exist.
The other reason is that work, much like everywhere else in the world, is hard to come by. Miguel's dad was Canadian, so he knows some conversational English, and that can’t even get him a job in the resort areas of the north coast (not that he could get a job there anyway, since he technically doesn’t exist and all).
A few months later, Miguel informed me that four of his younger pitchers were planning to go to Santiago, an hour and a half away, to audition for some Mets scouts. They were hopeful to get signed to contracts, whatever their value, and stay on at the Mets’ academy. I admit that I don’t intricately know how the Dominican system for finding players works, but I do know that the Mets academy is in Boca Chica (it’s supposed to be brand new and really nice), so I begin to wonder about Santiago. I questioned Miggy about how he heard about the tryout, who’s going with them and so on. The scout that visited is providing transportation and a place to stay. My first thought was ‘Woah, a scout came to Islabon, that's pretty cool.’ My second thought was ‘Woah, a scout came to Islabon? Something just doesn’t seem right.’ Something definitely didn't seem right. I repeated what he told me, and I asked Miguel what that situation sounded like to him. He knew right away.
“I’m an idiot,” he said and hung up.
I called him right back.
“If someone from the Mets or any other team says they’re going to show up in Islabon again, let me know. I want to be there,” I told him. He agreed. He called me a week later.
“One’s coming today.”
*Continued at Uncovering a Buscone - Part 2*
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