DRSEA INFORMER
Volume V, Issue 1: A Publication For Your Reading Enjoyment
La Conexión Venezolana (The Venezuelan Connection) - The Dominican Republic
is second only to the United States in delivering players to Major League Baseball, but coming in
third – and gaining – is Venezuela. The dynamics of Venezuelan baseball are shifting, increasing
the importance of the Dominican Republic in the development of Latin American players.
Last season, 86 Dominican players were listed on Major League Baseball Opening Day rosters;
Venezuela contributed 62. The previous year the Dominican Republic supplied the same number,
86, while Venezuela had 58.
At one point, 23 Major League Baseball teams had training facilities in Venezuela; today the
number is down to just four – the Philadelphia Phillies, the Detroit Tigers, the Seattle Mariners
and the Tampa Bay Rays. For a variety to reasons, the other MLB teams have opted to bring
Venezuelan prospects to the Dominican Republic where all 30 teams train players.
Rafael Pérez, head of Major League Baseball Operations in the Dominican Republic and Latin
America, said the chief reason for the change is economics; it cost four times more to train a
player in Venezuela, more to house and feed players, more to bring in supplies and equipment,
more to pay coaches, trainers and staff. “It is just cheaper to scout players in Venezuela,” he said,
“and bring them to existing facilities in the Dominican Republic. The cost of operating an
academy is a fraction.”
Rafael Pérez
Several people I talked with played down the safety issue, but there is no doubt Venezuela is a
dangerous country. It leads Latin American countries in the number of murders committed
annually, with a figure four times higher than Mexico, twice as high as Columbia.
The fact that a Major League Baseball player from Venezuela, Wilson Ramos, a catcher with the
Washington Nationals, was kidnapped a few months ago and held for ransom, certainly didn’t
add to the appeal of the country. Ramos was rescued unharmed by the Venezuelan army.
Add to that what Rene Gayo, the Pittsburgh Pirates director of Latin American scouting,
described as an anti-American attitude and the Venezuelan exodus is further explained. “With
the anti-American sentiments and [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chávez, and radical dialogue,
people are moving out,” he said.
The Pirates closed down their Venezuelan academy last year because of the political climate and
the danger factors, according to Gayo. “Hoodlums would come on payday,” he said, “and rob
everybody at the academy. Over the years, little by little, ever since Mr. Chávez took power,
indications are that things are going in an opposite direction. Either Chávez gets out of power, or
he will make it into the Cuba of the 21st Century.”
Rene Gayo
He added, “Our owner made a significant investment in the Dominican Republic. We wanted to
streamline, so it was economically intelligent to do what we are doing. By certain measures, all
that really matters is how well the players play.”
Major League Baseball recently hosted a talent showcase featuring the top 25 unsigned prospects
from both Venezuela and the Dominican Republic; those players can be signed July 2.
Gayo said that forcing players from the two countries to compete head-to-head hasn’t created
additional concerns or problems. “There has always been a sense of nationalism of competition
in Latin America,” he said, “particularly at the entry level. But they come to the U.S. united by
common obstacles of language and culture, so they are equal there.”
The four teams with operations in Venezuela did not respond to requests for comment.
El Mismo Juego De Nombres (Same Name Game) – Dominican authorities have
arrested yet another Dominican baseball player on charges of faking his identify, this time for
more than 11 years.
Fausto Carmona, a pitcher with the Cleveland Indians, was outside the U.S. consulate in Santo
Domingo when he was busted for falsifying both his name and birth date when he was signed as a
free agent in 2000. Carmona’s real name is Roberto Hernández Heredia and he is 31 years old,
three years older than he reportedly led the Indians to believe.
The Indians placed Carmona/Heredia, who was released on bail, on baseball’s restricted list
pending the outcome of his case; he will not be paid until free of his legal predicament. He was
schedule to earn $7 million in the upcoming season.
Fausto Carmona
Carmona’s arrest comes only a few months after Florida Marlins pitcher Leo Núñez - who is
actually Juan Carlos Oviedo – revealed he played under an assumed name and age for 10 years.
He was arrested briefly but released after authorities in the Dominican Republic said he would
not be charged in the investigation of his use of fake documents. He was also placed on the
restricted list.
I have been told that more than two dozen current major league and minor league players from
the Dominican Republic are in the same fix as Carmona/Heredia and Núñez /Oviedo, and, like
them, failed to come forward when MLB offered amnesty in 2008 to players who admitted
falsifying their names or ages.
Major League Baseball has been plagued for years with age and identity fraud problems in the
Dominican Republic and initiated a major reform movement nearly two years ago. While the
problem has been curtailed, it has not been eliminated as the Núñez and Carmona cases
demonstrate.
Major League Baseball rules provide a year suspension for minor leaguers who commit identity
fraud; major leaguers are penalized at the discretion of the commissioner’s office. But the legal
issue of a forged identity can bar a player from receiving a U.S. visa, effectively ending his
career.
Lecciones De Mi Padre (Lessons From My Father ) – As each Valentine’s Day
approaches, I am of mixed emotions. My girlfriend drops hints almost daily on what would be
the appropriate gift. I am thinking flowers and candy; she is thinking a Blackberry and shoes.
But the day is not without sadness for me. My father would have turned 98 on February 14, so
the day is an annual – sometimes painful – reminder that I am no longer blessed to have him in
my daily life, only in my daily memories.
I often think about what would be his take on my efforts, my goals in the Dominican Republic to
build a sports and education operation that would help bridge the academic gap that the majority
of baseball players in the country face. I am convinced that as we edge closer and closer to the
day when dream is reality, he would be proud.
My father grew up in poverty. His father abandoned the family; my grandmother worked as a
domestic to feed and cloth her three children.
Education transformed my father’s life. He went to college in 1930 at age 16; I often try to
imagine what it must have been like to be Black and intelligent in those days of segregation, of
the overt racism he faced every day. He attended Lincoln University, the oldest historically
Black college in the U.S., and excelled academically. People would later describe him as so poor
during his college years that he wore an overcoat patched and mended so many times he needed a
combination to get in and out of it.
My dad during his student years
After a stint in the Army during World War II, he returned to school, attending Ohio State
University where he became the first African American to earn a PhD in English. He successfully
served as a graduate assistant despite concerns that white students might resent taking instructions
from a Negro.
Graduation day at Ohio State
Unable to get a job at a white institution because of the color of his skin, he returned to his alma
mater, teaching English and journalism for 38 years, then remained as a mentor, tutor and friend
to thousands of students. Those he influenced went on to become doctors, lawyers, teachers,
judges, and even a couple of Pulitzer Prize winners.
All my life he was my mentor and tutor and – in the last years of his life – my friend. I remember
when I was 10 or 11, he was offered a job at a prestigious white institution, a rare occurrence in
those days. It came with an annual salary of $14,000, a princely sum in those days, but Dr.
Farrell turned it down, much to my dismay at the time as he explained, “Charles, life is not
always about money.”
That is one of the many valuable lessons he taught me over the years as our relationship
developed from father-son, to mentor-mentee, to friends as I came to understand that what he
expected of me was no more than I eventually came to understand was what I was capable of
accomplishing. He was never one to hand out a lot of accolades, so when he expressed pride in
me as my journalism career developed, I knew it was earned respect, and a lot of it based on the
command of English I mastered under him.
Now, I think about him every day; how wise and wonderful he was, how determined he was to
make a difference in the world, to influence and inspire people to live up to their potential, to
excel in life.
I believe he would be proud of the path I am on today as I advocate educating those less fortunate
than myself who live in a Third World country, a developing nation where baseball provides both
entertainment and career aspirations for the multitude. I think how education altered his life,
directed mine and gave purpose to both our lives.
As we move closer each day to turning the Dominican Republic Sports & Education Academy
into reality, I remain mindful of the lessons my father taught me and their influence on my
decisions. I know that the lives of those the DRSEA aspires to educate can and will be drastically
altered in meaningful ways, ways that dollars and pesos cannot measure.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Dad.
Poniendo La Pobresa En Perspectiva (Putting Poverty Into Perspective) – You
get a different view on the race for the presidency of the United States when the view is from the
Dominican Republic, which has its own set of problems, economic and otherwise. And as such,
the antics of the Republican candidates take on a far different perspective living in Santo
Domingo than living in New York City.
I have followed the debates with interest generated mainly over who will be Barack Obama’s
opponent next fall, and I have to say I cringe at the prospects. But Mitt Romney’s outlandish
comment that he didn’t worry about the poorest Americans, wasn’t concerned since they had
safety nets, was unsettling, to say the least, coming from a man worth $200 million.
In living in the Dominican Republic, I have told myself that I will never get comfortable with the
level of poverty I witness here on a daily basis. It is different, it is more profound, more
pervasive than in the United States – and there are no safety nets such as welfare, food stamps,
Medicare or Social Security. All too frequently, people don’t exist; they survive.
There is definitely a wealth gap in the Dominican Republic. I see mansions and yachts and
luxury cars, but I also see tin shacks with no plumbing, blackouts the norm, and limited food
sources in far too many homes, impossible to stretch to provide solid nutrition. Health care is
generally good in the country, but seeing a doctor can still boil down to a choice between
addressing a baby’s cough or putting some food on the table. It is not the poverty with safeguards
that Mitt Romney tosses aside while counting his millions.
Yet the Dominican Republic is rich in people, in culture, in fortitude. Dominicans are said to be
the second happiest people in the world, after Costa Rica. People here with little share what they
have, living for today while hoping for tomorrow. “God will provide,” they tell me, and somehow
He does.
It is not unlike the promise of baseball, the dream sold to millions of Dominican boys who hone
their skills under the hot Caribbean sun for a slim shot at Major League glory and the riches that
go along with it – riches that transform life in the Dominican Republic, riches that eliminate the
daily struggle to survive.
But the reality is that stardom in baseball – moving from rags to riches – is reached by only a
few. By Major League Baseball’s own account, only two in 100 top prospects will even make the
minor leagues in America, let alone the Big League. And most of those 98 rejected return to the
poverty they so desperately sought to escape. The fact that the vast majorities are uneducated or
undereducated only compounds the situation, and their poverty becomes an endless cycle.
I see the hopes and dreams reflected in the eyes of so many boys who pursue baseball; I see the
fire extinguished in the eyes of those who have failed. Education, in and of itself, is a safety net,
opening up vast areas of opportunity where none existed.
Where Baseball Is Born photo
Unfortunately, education for Dominican prospects is as elusive as the baseball dream they chase.
With no safety net to break their fall, reality lands hard.
Charles S. Farrell
DRSEA Contact Information in the Dominican Republic
Address: Calle 19 de Marzo, #103, Suite 305, Zona Colonial, Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic
Phone: 829-505-2991
Website: www.drsea.org
Myspace: Myspace.com/drseaorg
Twitter: Twitter.com/drseaorg
Facebook: www.facebook.com/drseaorg
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