Total Baseball (1994 Edition)

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$Unique_ID{BAS00170} $Pretitle{} $Title{Baseball in the Caribbean} $Subtitle{} $Author{ Ruck, Rob} $Subject{Caribbean Cuba Mexico Nicaragua Dominican Republic Venezuela Puerto Rico Panama Colombia winter league Liga de Beisbol Latino Latinos Serie del Caribe latin leagues} $Log{} Total Baseball: Other Leagues Baseball in the Caribbean Rob Ruck Soon after the World Series marks the season's end in the United States, baseball springs back to life in and around the Caribbean. There, to the beat of salsa and merengue and against a backdrop of palm trees and seasonal labor, some of the best baseball in the world is played each winter. While most of South America follows football and the British West Indies follows cricket, the rest of the Caribbean basin plays baseball--and has for the better part of a century. Since baseball fever first infected Cuba in the 1870s, the game has infiltrated the sporting psyches of Mexico, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, and Colombia. Although tied to major league baseball in four of these countries through a set of winter leagues and as a source of fresh talent, Caribbean baseball is not simply an appendage of the game that is played in the United States. Rather, baseball has acquired an autonomous persona as the peoples of the region have made the game into their own national pastimes. More than simply recreation or a display of grace and competence, baseball has catalyzed national consciousness and cohesion in the Caribbean basin. A critical part of the fabric of everyday life, the sport has also influenced how these societies have come to define themselves, their relations with each other, and their ties to the United States. "It's more than a game," Dominican winter league general manager Winston Llenas once remarked. "It's our passion. It's almost our way of life." Pedro Julio Santana stands at his office window in what was once the colonial zone of Santo Domingo. A sportsman at the center of Dominican baseball's evolution earlier this century, he searches for words to describe how the game penetrated his country and the rest of the basin. Glancing below to the hulking walls of the first Catholic cathedral in the western hemisphere, Santana finds his metaphor. "It is much the same as that which happened with Christianity. Jesus could be compared to the North Americans, but the apostles were the ones that spread the faith, and the apostles of baseball were Cubans. Even though the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were occupied by the North Americans, the Cubans first brought baseball here, and to Mexico and Venezuela, too." Caribbean baseball's first epicenter was Cuba, which had fallen into orbit around the United States by the late nineteenth century. Baseball arrived there last century, brought by sailors, students, and businessmen from the United States as well as by Cubans who had traveled north. The U.S. military occupations that followed the 1898 conflict with Spain stimulated baseball's expansion there and across the basin. By the time the Good Neighbor Policy had supplanted the Big Stick in the 1930s, baseball was entrenched. Moreover, Cuban baseball had become the focal point of an international network that stretched from the Caribbean basin through the Negro Leagues. What was likely the first ballgame in Cuba with local participation occurred in June 1866, when sailors of a U.S. ship taking on sugar invited Cuban longshoremen to play. El Club Habana (Havana) began two years later, crushing a team from Matanzas in the first organized contest of two Cuban teams. Havana's victory over Matanzas featured two of Cuba's sporting pioneers, Esteban Bellan and Emilio Sabourin. Bellan became the first Latino in U.S. organized baseball, playing three seasons in the National Association (1871-1873). Sabourin, the A.G. Spalding of Cuban baseball, was the motivating force behind the Liga de Beisbol Profesional Cubana, whose inaugural tournament was won by Sabourin's reconstituted Havana club in 1878. Sabourin proselytized for his sport as well as for the cause of Cuban independence from Spain until his contribution of baseball revenues to the independence movement incurred the wrath of Spanish officials. They imprisoned Sabourin until his death and banned baseball in parts of their colony. While initially a game of the more affluent and those with contact with the United States, baseball soon spread to all classes of Cuban society, both urban and rural. U.S. military occupations, support by companies and businessmen, and close ties to political elites would shape its subsequent development, much as these forces would elsewhere in the basin. The game was organized on three overlapping levels in its early years. The first was an ad hoc player-organized, self-directed network of teams. The second involved clubs sponsored by businessmen, companies, and politicians who sought the promotional advantages of such patronage. The third level was that of professional (sometimes semiprofessional) baseball, which organized championships from 1878 until 1961, with a changing cast of teams and format. In some years, no tournaments were held, while in others both a summer and winter season took place. Havana, Almendares, Santa Clara, Cienfuegos, and Marianao were the league's mainstays. Until the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the ensuing U.S. blockade, Cuba set the standard for Caribbean baseball. It sent the most players to the major and Negro leagues while its winter and summer tournaments featured the highest caliber of Latin ball and attracted players from both the States and the basin. Cuban players, radio broadcasts, and emigrants, in turn, became baseball's emissaries to the rest of the region. In the Dominican Republic, Cubans who had migrated to escape the turmoil of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) were the first to form teams. Young Dominicans emulated them and joined with compatriots who had studied in the United States to establish a self-organized matrix of teams and tournaments well in place before the U.S. Marines arrived in 1916 for their eight-year occupation. Santo Domingo's Licey, the oldest of the six professional Dominican clubs, formed in 1907, while the forerunners of San Pedro de Macoris' Estrellas Orientales, Santiago's Aguilas Cibaenas, and Santo Domingo's other club, Escogido, took to the field soon afterward. While Dominicans refer to these early decades as the romantic epoch of baseball, commercial forces were already at work there and across the basin. Teams occasionally recruited players with the lure of financial reward and soon began importing Cubans and Puerto Ricans for championship tournaments. Moreover, local clubs often induced talented players with payment in cash or work. North American oil companies in Venezuela, rum distilleries and tobacco manufacturers in Cuba, and sugar cane companies in Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic sponsored or assisted workplace teams for recreation and community entertainment, but with an industrial agenda, too--winning their workers' hearts and minds. During these "Yankee years", between 1898 and 1933, when the Marines hit the beaches thirty-four times in ten different basin countries, they found baseball already implanted in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. They never made it to Venezuela, but would have found baseball there, too, as early as the organization of the Caracas club in 1895. The occupations, though, helped to push the sport along. While Nicaraguans had played on their Atlantic coast since 1888, the nation's longest-running pro team, Boer, was founded by the U.S. consul in Managua. In the Dominican Republic, U.S. marines and sailors played ball to bolster morale; they were frequently challenged by Dominican teams, for whom these contests were both a test of sporting abilities and national character. Far more baseball was in evidence by the end of the U.S. stay on the island. While Cubans and some other basin natives had broken into baseball in the States during the first half of the century, the center of gravity for Caribbean baseball remained a regional one. A "Have Glove--Will Travel" mentality soon took hold of basin baseball and its ablest practitioners made the rounds of national tournaments. A core of the finest black players from the States--then barred from major league play by the color line, as were most Latinos--joined them in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Mexico. Caribbean baseball's apogee was probably reached in the summer of 1937 in the Dominican Republic during a national championship dedicated to the re-election of the then state-of-the-art dictator Rafael Trujillo. Top Dominican players were joined by the best Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Negro league talent that the Dominican peso could buy to form a three-team league. Santiago boasted the services of Martin Dihigo, Luis Tiant Sr., and Horacio Martinez; San Pedro de Macoris countered with Tetelo Vargas, Ramon Bragana, and Cocaina Garcia, while the eventual victor, Ciudad Trujillo (a merger of Licey and Escogido that represented the city Trujillo had renamed in his own honor) relied on future Hall of Famers Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Satchel Paige, as well as Silvio Garcia, Perucho Cepeda, and Sam Bankhead. Baseball on the island was the equal of that played anywhere that summer. These players barnstormed year-round, and many of them later played together as Santa Clara in Cuba and as La Concordia in Venezuela. The proprietary interest taken by caudillos such as Trujillo or Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza ensured baseball of its most-favored sport status and contributed to the growth of strong regional rivalries. Caribbean participation in the Mundiales, the world amateur baseball championships that began in 1938, and later the Caribbean Series of pro circuits, which started in 1949, reinforced the game's hegemony. Latin ball was an opportunity for North American players to supplement their income and hone their skills in encounters that sometimes surpassed the caliber of major league play. However, it was also a threat to organized baseball in the States. Major league teams had played in Cuba before the turn of the century, and afterward Negro league squads as well as individual black and white pros journeyed south. The 1937 raids on the Negro leagues by Dominican teams destroyed the Pittsburgh Crawfords, and other Negro league squads frequently lost their best players and gate attractions to basin teams. From 1939 until the demise of independent black baseball a decade later, Venezuelan and Mexican franchises vied for Negro leaguers during the summer months, enticing Josh Gibson, Ray Dandridge, and other stars to jump their Negro league teams. They offered better pay and a different atmosphere. "Not only do I get more money playing here, but I live like a king," Willie Wells wrote to Pittsburgh Courier sportswriter Wendell Smith in 1939 to explain his switch from the Newark Eagles to Vera Cruz. "I am not faced with the racial problem. . . . I've found freedom and democracy here, something I never found in the United States. . . . Here, in Mexico, I am a man." The major leagues were less vulnerable to such competition, but even they blanched when Mexican liquor mogul Jorge Pasquel sought major leaguers in addition to Negro leaguers to bolster the six-team summer Mexican League in 1946. Railroad workers from the States taught the game to their Mexican colleagues as early as the 1880s and a strong semipro league formed in the 1920s. In Sonora and Mexico City, the game felt the pull of baseball across the northern border, which Mexican and black teams frequently crossed. In the Yucatan, baseball pointed more toward the Caribbean, especially Cuba. Pasquel, pumping new capital into the league, persuaded Mickey Owens, Sal Maglie, and Max Lanier to desert their major league teams, prompting the latter to ban them. Pasquel also pursued Stan Musial, reportedly placing $50,000 on the bed in his spring training hotel room at a time when the Cardinals' outfielder was making but $13,000 a season. Other basin leagues also lost top players in the Mexican effort to upgrade. Pasquel's challenge, however, was blunted by organized baseball in the States, which tried to limit any competition for its players, and by the Mexican League's own logistical and financial difficulties. The challenge faded after the 1948 season. In the aftermath of the Mexican raids and with integration imminent, major league baseball began to sign accords with professional leagues throughout the basin, formalizing player movement and institutionalizing winter play. That was especially important, for with the end of the color line in 1947 Latinos soon renewed their assault on major league ball. By the 1970s, the basin would constitute the freshest source of talent in the majors, especially important as the black community turned away from baseball as part of a general shift toward other sports in the United States. But Latin players--black and white--had played pro ball in the United States long before Jackie Robinson's historic debut. Colombia's Luis Castro broke ground in baseball's modern era, after the creation of the National and American Leagues, but Cubans for the most part led the way. While Castro played only part of the 1902 season, Rafael Almeida and Armando Marsans spearheaded a Cuban invasion in 1911 that left its imprimatur on the game and numbered over thirty players before integration. Another ninety or so Cubans played major league ball after that divide. The crucial factor controlling the entry of Cubans and other basin players into the major leagues was skin color. Barnstorming their way through black communities from the early century on, Cuban teams had become a mainstay of the Negro leagues that began in 1920. Popular draws, the Cuban Stars and the New York Cubans featured Latinos too dark to pass the color line into the majors. Playing most of their contests on the road, these Caribbean squads injected talent and a tropical allure to the game. Cubans Martin Dihigo, Alejandro Oms, Luis Tiant Sr., Orestes "Minnie" Minoso, and Silvio Garcia were joined by Dominicans Horacio Martinez and Tetelo Vargas, Puerto Rican Peruchin Cepeda, Panamanian Pat Scantlebury, and sometimes several black North Americans who passed for Cubans, on these pan-Caribbean aggregations. A few Cubans, such as Cristobal Torriente, a powerful outfielder, and Jose de la Caridad Mendez, "El Diamante Negro," who took a no-hitter into the ninth inning the first time he faced the barnstorming Cincinnati Reds, became mainstays of other Negro league franchises. Lighter-skinned Cubans from that predominantly mixed island played on the other side of sport's racial boundary in the States, in the major leagues. Perhaps the greatest pre-Jackie Robinson Cuban major leaguer was Adolfo Luque, a pitcher whose twenty big league seasons were capped by a brilliant 27-8 record in 1923 and a winning relief stint of shutout ball in the seventh game of the 1933 World Series. Following that game, Clark Griffith, whose Washington Senators had lost the Series, decided to back a scouting exhibition to Cuba. He sent Joe Cambria. "Papa Joe", as many still refer to Cambria, stocked the Senators with Cubans. Among his first signees was Roberto Estalella, from the sugarcane milltown that Hershey Chocolate operated in Cardenas. The Cincinnati Enquirer had greeted the signings of Almeida and Marsans in 1911 with relief, introducing them as "two of the purest bars of Castilian soap to ever wash upon our shores," but the darker-hued Estalella was more controversial. No one challenged this indirect breaching of the color line, although it prompted Red Smith to write his classic column in which he suspected that "there was a Senegambian somewhere in the Cuban batpile where Senatorial lumber was seasoned." The player regarded in the Caribbean as the best Cuban ever, and arguably the finest ballplayer of all time, never played major league ball. Martin Dihigo displayed his talents in Cuba, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, and is enshrined in the Hall of Fame of three of these nations. Dihigo excelled at the plate, on the mound, and as a manager, but integration came too late for him. His bust at Havana's Estadio Latinoamericano reads simply, El Immortal. The contradiction that some Cubans played in the majors and others in the Negro leagues was not lost upon blacks in the States or on Latin ballplayers. As early as Almeida's and Marsans' 1911 debut, the black press began to hope that black ballplayers would soon follow them into baseball's most exclusive league. And while Negro leaguers went south to adulation and greater pay, dark-skinned Latinos who came north encountered prejudice based on both skin color and nationality. As major leaguers such as Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Carl Hubbell traveled south to play in winter ball, black North Americans and Latinos found that they could more than hold their own. These symbolic victories were appreciated both in the States and throughout the basin. North American blacks and the peoples of the region shared each other's athletes and appropriated each other's sporting heroes and symbols. If a proving ground was necessary to show that blacks could compete with whites, that the two could coexist on the same squad, or to dispel any other racial shibboleth, Caribbean baseball was just that. Following integration, the more farsighted owners began scouring the islands for prospects. Soon a fresh wave of Latinos arrived in the majors, including three future Hall of Famers: Venezuela's Luis Aparicio, Puerto Rico's Roberto Clemente, and the Dominican Republic's Juan Marichal. They signaled, moreover, a shift away from Cuba as the primary spawning waters for Caribbean players. With the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the subsequent deterioration of relations with the United States, Cuba fell out of organized baseball's system. The Havana Sugar Kings, an International League franchise affiliated with the Reds since 1954, were on their way to winning the Little World Series of the AAA minor leagues in 1959, just months after Fidel Castro came to power. The revolutionary government offered to underwrite the Sugar Kings' debts, and Castro sought to keep the franchise there, "even if I have to pitch," but the International League shipped the club to Jersey City during the 1960 season. Baseball in Cuba was cut off completely from baseball in the United States, and the movement of players and equipment halted. Cuba developed its own sporting goods industry and relied on the repatriated Dihigo, a political exile during the 1950s who had given money to Che Guevara and who now returned to help teach the game. Cuban baseball soon shed its commercial skin and sought instead to advance the social and political aims of the revolution. Cuba has remained the powerhouse in world amateur baseball ever since, but the island stopped producing new major leaguers. After the Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Tony Perez generations passed out of baseball, the next set of Cubans to reach the majors were those who, while born on the island, had grown up in the United States. The fulcrum of baseball power, meanwhile, shifted one island to the east, where the Dominican Republic shared Hispaniola with French-speaking, soccer-playing Haiti. After the star-studded 1937 season, pro ball in the Dominican Republic entered a fourteen-year hiatus. While an occasional tournament celebrated an event such as the nation's centennial, Dominican pros Horacio Martinez and Tetelo Vargas plied their trade in Cuba, Venezuela, or the United States. But several forces revitalized Dominican baseball in the 1940s, and after the reappearance of a professional league in 1951, these dynamics propelled over a hundred players to the major leagues. The first catalyst was the birth of the Mundial, an international championship tournament for amateur baseball. After its inauguration in England in 1938, the Mundial moved to the Caribbean. Held in the basin throughout the 1940s, with Cuba hosting five consecutive tournaments, the Mundial had a decidedly Latin flavor and became the most important sporting competition in which these nations competed on something approximating equal footing, both with each other and with the United States. Basin nations won every championship from 1940 through 1972, with Cuba winning eleven out of eighteen times. National aspirations and international rivalries sometimes were injected into the Mundial. An irate Anastasio Somoza fired the Nicaraguan manager in the midst of one and took to the dugout to direct the team himself. Nicaraguan national honor was restored by a victory over Cuba in the final game of the 1972 series, an event still celebrated as one of the Central American nation's greatest sporting exploits. The Dominican victory in 1948, coming just months after virtually the entire national championship team perished in a plane crash by the Rio Verde, captivated the Republic and lent impetus to pro ball's rebirth there. A second factor in Dominican baseball's rejuvenation was the creation of the Direccion General de Deportes. Modeled in part after the comparable Cuban agency, this government body organized regional and then national tournaments for amateur baseball (often with semiprofessional overtones) that gave further purpose to local, company, and armed forces support. Many of the Dominicans that entered the majors from the late 1950s on, including Marichal, Manuel Mota, and the three Rojas Alou brothers, played on these squads. The final catalysts to Dominican ascendancy were bananas and sugarcane, and the concentrations of baseball fervor and expertise which they fostered. While the sugarcane milltowns of the southeast produce the most prospects today, the banana region along the northwest border with Haiti was instrumental in cultivating the first contingent of pros in the late 1950s. There the Grenada Company, a United Fruit Company subsidiary, began two teams for its workers and their sons in the 1940s. The squad won three national championships, and Juan Marichal and Guayubin Olivo passed through its ranks to the majors. Dominican sugarcane milltowns, like those in Cuba, had long spawned ballclubs. The six-month long tiempo muerto, or dead season, when the cane required minimal attention and most workers were unemployed, contributed to an intense sporting environment, first for cricket and ultimately for baseball. In the 1920s and '30s, Central La Romana's Papagayo team was an amateur powerhouse, and in the 1940s the milltowns in and around San Pedro de Macoris made their play. There the descendants of cricket-playing migrants from the British West Indies brought to cut cane and work in the mills displayed an aptitude for playing baseball and an approach to organizing the game that made San Pedro baseball's Mecca. Since Rico Carty's breakthrough in the 1960s, San Pedro has contributed about one-third of the Dominicans to play in the big leagues. The town currently sends more of its native sons to the majors on a per-capita basis than any town ever has. There is probably no other place on earth where the game is played as well and as widely. Since the end of the color line, ballplayers from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Colombia, and even the Bahamas have played major league ball. Although the Dominican Republic leads this basin contingent, substantial numbers of Puerto Ricans and Venezuelans are present, too. Mexico, despite a population that dwarfs the rest of the region combined and its well-developed pro leagues, sends few players to the majors. Unlike the other basin leagues, Mexican teams retain first rights to sign any native amateur. A major league club, therefore, must buy the contract from a player's Mexican club, usually for more than it costs to sign a prospect elsewhere in the region. This relationship, the summer Mexican league, and perhaps cultural factors, too, persuade native ballplayers to remain in Mexico. Cuba opted out of this network after its revolution, and Nicaragua, whose eleven-year fling with the pro winter leagues ended in 1967, followed suit after its 1979 revolution. Panama and Colombia have also tried winter ball, but financial pressures made play sporadic. The flow of players continues to run both north and south. Minor and major leaguers from the United States still play in the winter leagues, which presently operate in Venezuela, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. In their heyday during the 1950s and '60s, these winter leagues featured major leaguers like Tommy Lasorda, Whitey Ford, and Willie Stargell. But as major league salaries soared in the 1970s and unfavorable rates of exchanges weakened basin economies, the winter leagues restricted the number of North American imports. Minor leaguers and inexperienced major leaguers have replaced them. For them, these leagues provide the chance to play in the winter months, developing the potential that might allow them to crack a big league roster. They also earn higher pay than they do in the minors, encounter competition from top Latino players, and are treated as demigods by the impassioned fanaticos of the winter game. The winners of the winter leagues have met in a Serie del Caribe since 1949. Between 1949 and 1960, the pennant-winning squads of Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela played in early February to determine a champion of the Caribbean. Cuba won over half of these tournaments, but after the revolution, the series was discontinued. When it resumed in 1970, Mexico and the Dominican Republic replaced Cuba and Panama. The current round-robin format sends the teams that win their postseason tournaments to the Serie del Caribe along with a number of reinforcements, including North Americans, from their defeated opponents. Willie Mays, Monte Irvin, Camilo Pasqual, Rico Carty, and Vic Pellot Power are among those who have starred in these postseason celebrations. Winter ball has descended from its zenith of the 1950s and '60s largely due to economic dynamics beyond the control of the Caribbean franchises. Rising player and fuel costs, devalued currencies, and underdevelopment pushed many into deficits, with government subsidies often vital to their continuation. Government support, long a feature of basin baseball, helps to keep current the Dominican saying that there will never be political trouble during the baseball season, only afterward. But by the middle of the 1980s, fewer of the established Latin major leaguers suited up for the October-through-January campaign. The demands of the regular season, the threat of injury, and the relatively inconsequential pay of winter ball suggest that this trend will continue. The pattern, however, has given younger Latin ballplayers the chance to play before knowledgeable fans and against competition that is often at a major league level. While winter ball in the late 1980s was troubled and other sports were making inroads, baseball remains el rey de deportes (the king of sports) throughout the basin. From the rocky hillsides and arid plains of northern Mexico through the canefields of the islands to the basin's southernmost flank in the Andes, baseball commands a fascination approaching reverence. Baseball's significance derives from the role that it has played in the coming together of these societies in the twentieth century. Knitting a common cultural fabric, serving as a vent to social and political tensions, and offering a vehicle not only for individual mobility but collective social affirmation, baseball indeed has been more than a game. It has offered the citizens of the basin a chance to enter a ritual kinship embracing all fans and players. And while reflecting the progressive penetration of the United States in the region, baseball has been more than a cultural transmission belt for North American values. Beating each other and excelling in the major leagues and international competitions at a time when the Caribbean basin has encountered difficulties in asserting either its political or economic autonomy have been tremendous sources of pride. And that symbolic recognition has become a catalyst to national cohesion and consciousness for the region in its troubled evolution this century. The lights are going out in Santo Domingo, and like so many aspects of this nation's descent into economic chaos, it's affecting baseball. They still play the game, but this year the ballparks are eerily quiet, mute testimony to winter baseball's deepening crisis. And those close to the game are asking what it will take to ensure professional baseball's survival in the 1990s. The streets outside Estadio Quisqueya in Santo Domingo are dark; the players sprawl in clusters on the grass inside. A few take a form of batting practice, hitting balls tossed laterally from a few feet away, into a net. Soon, as darkness becomes nearly complete, they hit off a tee. Then, even that becomes impossible. Gradually, the Big Dipper becomes visible, standing straight up to form a celestial question mark that might as well be asking if tonight's game will be played. The question is answered when the generator kicks in with a fireworks-like flourish and bulbs pop on in the light stanchions. At first, nobody moves, then gradually bodies rise stiffly from the grass and walk out onto the field. This barely averted blackout offers an exaggerated example of winter ball's woes. But the crisis, which has halved attendance here and in Puerto Rico, knocked one franchise out of action, and threatens others, has been brewing for over a decade. "Dominicans haven't lost their love of the game," Winston Llenas, Aguilas' general manager attests. "But this society is in trouble, serious trouble. It's living dangerously now." Over two years into an economic downturn in which inflation and the exchange rate for the peso with the U.S. dollar have soared and living standards have fallen, the Dominican Republic suffers from severe electrical shortages, a lack of potable water, and a transportation system in suspended motion. The ballparks, once a beacon of light in the evening sky, now often remain dark until shortly before game time. The nation's collapse is part of a continental decline that has seen much of Latin America regress to an economic level last seen during the 1930s. "Perhaps our biggest problem," Llenas adds, "is the lack of desire on the part of the established Dominican players to play." Indeed, as major league salaries have spiraled upward, the incentive for the better-known Latins to play winter ball has all but disappeared. Llenas points to the benefits that have accrued to major league baseball from winter ball. "It's been a good partnership. Look at the resumes of players, managers, and even umpires in the United States. You have a saying there, 'What's good for General Motors is good for the USA.' Well, what's good for winter baseball is what's good for the major leagues. They should not let us die. Not when we need their help." A few nights later in San Pedro de Macoris, La Romana's Jose Offerman goes deep in the hole, spins, and nabs the runner at first in a play that has even a few of San Pedro's players exchanging high fives. In La Romana's dugout, manager Victor Ramirez raises one hand in the air as if to give religious testimony and exclaims, "What a talent!" Winter ball's lack of established major leaguers means that youths like Offerman are experiencing an accelerated development. By the end of the 1990 season, Offerman will be in the majors, and in coming years, he will attract Dominican fans back to the park. The cycle of regeneration is already at work. But that process will take a few years--years that are not guaranteed. As the game concludes and a squadron of boys leaps from the top of the dugout onto the field, it seems improbable that such a vibrant institution as winter ball could end in the near future. But it could. Postscript 1992: San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic Luis Perez stands in the outfield grass, shaking his Hiroshima Carp cap in the air and chanting his Japanese team's slogan: "We will not tire. Our song is work." Then, the twenty-one-year-old second baseman from a nearby sugar milltown sprints to the dugout. Besuboru has arrived in the tropic of baseball. In November 1990 the Hiroshima Carp inaugurated a state-of-the-art baseball academy amidst the canefields north of San Pedro de Macoris. "Its goal," says Cesar Germonimo, the former Cincinnati Red directing the camp, "is to make Dominican kids into Japanese major leaguers. We want to make a good ballplayer, but one who thinks like the Japanese." A few months later, Luis Perez and four of his compadres were training in Japan, the third group of recruits to cross the Pacific. There they impressed their hosts, especially after Perez drilled a fastball into the stands off Carp ace Hiroshi Nagatomi in a showcase exhibition in Fukuyama, and two of them made the Hiroshima farm team for the 1992 season. The Caribbean academy reflects a new Japanese approach to acquiring foreign talent, one that will reduce a onesided U.S. export. The Carp are recruiting and developing their own prospects, circumventing the U.S. major leagues and tapping the Dominican Republic, the best source of fresh talent in the game over the last twenty years. Since constructing the $4 million facility, the Carp have signed thirty-two Latin players, most of them seventeen- or eighteen-year olds. A dozen have left the team or been released; the remainder live at the academy or are with the Carp in Hiroshima. "Japan is a different culture than the U.S. and baseball there is different, too," explained Takashi Tanaka, the academy's general manager, after the camp opened. "Your major leaguers have often been difficult for us and quite expensive. With what it would cost to sign two Americans, we can sign many Dominicans of high quality." The Japanese recognize that foreigners inject new dimensions into their game, but cringe at the cultural fallout. U.S. major leaguers have offended their sensibilities by arguing with coaches and easing up on arduous pregame drills. Others deserted in midseason or placed family ahead of team, such as Randy Bass' much criticized absence from the Hanshin Tigers to be with his dying father. Cultivating young Dominican talent is perceived as an alternative to United States players and as a way to infuse Japanese play with the verve of the Caribbean game without jeopardizing its overall stress on wa, or team harmony. "Japan needs strong batters like Pedro Guerrero and George Bell," Tanaka contended. "What we don't want is the temperament of a George Bell," said Tanaka of the San Pedro slugger who once told the city of Toronto that "They can kiss my Dominican ass." "With these boys, we will teach the comportment, self-control, that they will need to play in Japan." The camp, with two fields, a clubhouse, a weight room, a dining room and dorm, as well as indoor batting cages and pitching mounds, surpasses the dozen or so training complexes that major league teams operate on the island. It will be the hub of the Carp's Caribbean program, says Geronimo, who plans on scouting talent in Venezuela, Panama, and Nicaragua, too. Living full-time in the enclave, the players are tightly supervised. They were not allowed to venture into nearby San Pedro for most of their first year here. The coaches, Dominicans who trained in Japan, have adapted the Carp approach to their regimen. That means less "play ball" than "work ball" under an unforgiving sun and the coaches' relentless scrutiny, where attitude is evaluated along with athleticism and grasp of the game. A plume of smoke from the nearby Santa Fe sugar mill reminds any player who can't make it on the ballfield that the canefields await him. The monthly wage in one of San Pedro's five sugarmills is about 1000 pesos, about $80 U.S. Luis Perez, infielder, makes between 2500 and 3000 pesos playing for the Carp. Perez and his teammates welcome anyone seeking to harvest the Dominican baseball crop, but U.S. clubs see the penetration of what had been their exclusive sporting preserve as a threat. "It's a free enterprise system and they can do what they want in looking for talent," said Major League Baseball director of operations Bill Murray after the academy opened. "A number of clubs don't welcome the competition." Hiroshima is the only one of the twelve Japanese pro teams to open a Caribbean academy. That could give them an advantage over other Japanese teams, which traditionally rely on a draft of Japanese amateurs supplemented by a few U.S. pros. Since Japanese rules limit a club to three foreigners, the Carp cannot flood their roster with inexpensive Latin talent. They could sell these players to other Japanese teams, teams in Taiwan and Korea, or even U.S. clubs, Tanaka said. These boys are hungry, Geronimo notes. The Carp seek to tap that hunger, which has made this nation of 6 million such a fecund source of talent. If they are successful, Japanese baseball will attain a new level of play, fueling speculation that the hidden motive is to take on the major leagues some day. "I can't speculate on the Japanese agenda for global competition," answers Cleveland Indians GM John Hart, "but this inevitably spells head-to-head battle with American clubs. They're in the same business we are, which is to procure talent." But Hart evinces little concern over a larger Japanese challenge. Geronimo offers a simpler explanation of the Carp's intentions. "The Japanese are losing games because they're holding back aggression on the field. I think our aggressive way of playing will help make Japanese baseball better." First Major Leaguers from Caribbean Basin Countries ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Country Player Year Team ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Belize Chito Martinez 1991 Baltimore Orioles Cuba Esteban Bellan 1871 Troy Haymakers Rafael Almeida 1911 Cincinnati Reds Armando Marsans 1911 Cincinnati Reds Colombia Luis "Jud" Castro 1902 Philadelphia Athletics Mexico Baldomero "Mel" Almada 1933 Boston Red Sox Venezuela Alejandro Carrasquel 1939 Washington Senators Puerto Rico Hiram Bithorn 1942 Chicago Cubs Panama Hector Lopez 1955 Kansas City Athletics Humberto Robinson 1955 Milwaukee Braves Dominican Republic Osvaldo Virgil 1956 New York Giants Virgin Islands Joe Christopher 1959 Pittsburgh Pirates Nicaragua Dennis Martinez 1976 Baltimore Orioles Honduras Gerald Young 1987 Houston Astros Curacao Hensley Meulens 1990 New York Yankees ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Serie del Caribe ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Series Year Site Winning Team/Country ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I 1949 Cuba Almendares/Cuba II 1950 Puerto Rico Carta Vieja/Panama III 1951 Venezuela Santurce/Puerto Rico IV 1952 Panama La Habana/Cuba V 1953 Cuba Santurce/Puerto Rico VI 1954 Puerto Rico Caguas/Puerto Rico VII 1955 Venezuela Santurce/Puerto Rico VIII 1956 Panama Cienfuegos/Cuba IX 1957 Cuba Marianao/Cuba X 1958 Puerto Rico Marianao/Cuba XI 1959 Venezuela Almendares/Cuba XII 1960 Panama Cienfuegos/Cuba 1961-69 Not Held XIII 1970 Venezuela Magallanes/Venezuela XIV 1971 Puerto Rico Licey/Dominican Republic XV 1972 Dominican Republic Ponce/Puerto Rico XVI 1973 Venezuela Licey/Dominican Republic XVII 1974 Mexico Caguas/Puerto Rico XVIII 1975 Puerto Rico Bayamon/Puerto Rico XIX 1976 Dominican Republic Hermosillo/Mexico XX 1977 Venezuela Licey/Dominican Republic XXI 1978 Mexico Mayaguez/Puerto Rico XXII 1979 Puerto Rico Magallanes/Venezuela XXIII 1980 Dominican Republic Licey/Dominican Republic 1981 Not Held XXIV 1982 Mexico Caracas/Venezuela XXV 1983 Venezuela Arecibo/Puerto Rico XXVI 1984 Puerto Rico Zulia/Venezuela XXVII 1985 Mexico Licey/Dominican Republic XXVIII 1986 Venezuela Mexicali/Mexico XXIX 1987 Mexico Caguas/Venezuela XXX 1988 Dominican Republic Escogido/Dominican Republic XXXI 1989 Mazatlan Zulia/Venezuela XXXII 1990 Miami Escogido/Dominican Republic XXXIII 1991 Miami Licey/Dominican Republic XXXIV 1992 Mexico Mayaguez/Puerto Rico XXXV 1993 Mexico Mayaguez/ Puerto Rico ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dominican League Statistics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Year Champion BA Leader HR Leader Most Games Won ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1951 Licey Luis Villodas Pedro Formental Guayuabin Olivo .346 13 10 1952 Aguilas Luis Olmo .344 Alonzo Perry 11 Terry McDuffie 14 1953 Licey Tetelo Vargas Alonzo Perry 11 Emilio Cueche 13 .355 1954 Estrellas Alonzo Perry .326 Bob Thurman 11 Carrao Bracho Orientales G. Olivo 8 1955-56 Escogido[*] Bob Wilson .333 Willie Kirkland 9 Fred Waters 11 1956-57 Escogido Osvaldo Virgil Danny Kravitz 4 Pete Burnside 11 .312 1957-58 Escogido Alonzo Perry .332 Dick Stuart 14 Fred Kipp 11 1958-59 Licey Felipe Alou .351 Jim McDaniels 12 Bennie Daniels 12 1959-60 Escogido Felipe Alou .359 Frank Howard 9 Stan Williams 12 1960-61 Escogido Manuel Mota .344 Manuel Jimenez Danilo Riva 13 J.V. Nicolas Victor Ramirez Felipe Alou N. Savinon Tied with 4 1961-62 Incomplete Season 1962-63 Not Held 1963-64 Licey Manuel Mota .379 O. McFarlane 10 G. Olivo Steve Blass 9 1964-65 Aguilas Manuel Mota .364 O. McFarlane 8 Dick LeMay 8 1965-66 Season not organized by league 1966-67 Aguilas Mateo Alou .363 Winston Llenas Dock Ellis 9 Bob Robertson 10 1967-68 Estrellas Ricardo Carty Bob Robertson 9 Silvano Quezada Orientales .350 11 1968-69 Escogido Mateo Alou .390 Nate Colbert 8 Jay Ritchie 9 1969-70 Licey Ralph Garr .387 Winston Llenas G. Rounsaville 8 Byron Browne 9 1970-71 Licey Ralph Garr .457 Cesar Cedeno 8 Rollie Fingers 9 1971-72 Aguilas Ralph Garr .388 Charlie Sands 10 Gene Garber 9 1972-73 Licey Von Joshua .358 Adrian Garrett 9 Pedro Borbon 9 1973-74 Licey Dave Parker .345 Ricardo Carty 9 Rick Waits 8 1974-75 Aguilas Bruce Bochte .352 Rafael Batista James Richards 8 Bobby Darwin 8 1975-76 Aguilas Wilbur Howard Wilbur Howard Nino Espinosa .341 John Hale Tom Dettore 8 Gary Alexander Larry Parrish G. Thomasson Bill Nahorodny Andre Thornton Tied with 4 1976-77 Licey Mario Guerrero Pedro Guerrero Angel Torres 10 .365 Ike Hampton 6 1977-78 Aguilas Omar Moreno .345 Dick Davis 8 Odell Jones Al Holland Mickey Mahler 7 1978-79 Aguilas Ted Cox .319 Bob Beall Bo McLaughlin Dick Davis 7 Mike Proly 9 1979-80 Licey Tony Pena .317 A. De Freitas Jerry Hannahs 9 Alberto Lois Leon Durham Samuel Mejia Pedro Guerrero Tied with 3 1980-81 Escogido Ken Landreaux Tony Pena 7 Mario Soto .394 M. Mahler 7 1981-82 Escogido Pedro Hernandez Dave Hostetler 9 Pasqual Perez 10 .408 1982-83 Licey Cesar Geronimo Howard Johnson 8 Pasqual Perez 9 .341 1983-84 Licey Miguel Dilone Reggie Whittemore Orel Hershiser .343 12 Frank Wills 8 1984-85 Licey Junior Noboa .327 Ralph Bryant 9 Tom Filer 8 1985-86 Aguilas Tony Fernandez Tony Pena 9 Mickey Mahler 8 .364 1986-87 Aguilas Stanley Javier Ralph Bryant 13 Gibson Alba .374 Jose Nunez Eric Plunk Tied with 5 1987-88 Escogido Stanley Javier Mark Parent 10 Jose Bautista 8 .363 1988-89 Licey Julio Peguero Domingo Michel 9 Melido Perez 8-3 .327 1989-90 Escogido Angel Gonzalez Denny Gonzalez 5 Mel Rojas .403 Jeff Shaw Kevin Wicklander Darren Holmes Tied with 6 1990-91 Licey Hensley Meulens Francisco Francesco De la .338 Cabrera 8 Rosa 7 1991-92 Escogido Luis Mercedes Francisco Jose Nunez 6 .333 Cabrera, Sammy Sosa, Geronimo Berroa, Kevin Koslofski, and Julian Yan tied with 4 1992-93 Aguilas Tom Marsh .318 Domingo Martinez 6 Efrain Valdez, Jose Martinez, Howard Farmer, and Rafael Valdez 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * First year held in winter Cuban League Statistics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Year Champion BA Leader HR Leader Most Games Won ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1878-79 Habana Undefeated 1879-80 Habana 1880-81 Not held 1882 Disputed: Fe and Habana 1882-83 Habana 1885 Habana Pablo Ronquilla .350 1885-86 Habana Wenceslao Galvez Adolfo Lujan 5-0 Undefeated .345 1887 Habana R. Martinez .439 Adolfo Lujan 5-0 1888 Fe Antonio Garcia Francisco .448 Hernandez 10-2 1889 Habana Francisco Adolfo Lujan 10-3 Salabarria .305 1889-90 Habana Antonio Garcia Miguel Prats 11-2 .364 1890-91 Fe Alfredo Crespo Miguel Prats 9-4 .375 1892 Habana Antonio Garcia E. Hernandez 4-1 .362 1892-93 Matanzas Antonio Garcia Francisco .385 Hernandez 4-1 1893-94 Almendares Miguel Pratts Jose Pastoriza .394 16-7 1894-95 Suspended Alfredo Arcano Enrique Garcia due to .430 12-4 War of Independence 1897-98 Not finished 1898 Habanista Valentin Gonzalez Jose Romero 5-2 .394 1900 San Esteban Pratts Luis Padron 13-4 Francisco .333 1901 Habana Julian Castillo Carlos Royer 12-3 .454 1902 Habana Luis Padron .463 Carlos Royer 17-0 Undefeated 1903 Habana Julian Castillo Candido Fontanals .330 14-6 1904 Habana Regino Garcia Carlos Royer 13-3 .397 1905 Almendares Regino Garcia Angel D'Meza 10-4 .305 1905-6 Fe Regino Garcia Jose Munoz 8-1 .304 1907 Almendares Regino Garcia George Mack 4-2 .324 1908 Almendares Emilio Palomino Jose Mendez 9-0 .350 1908-9 Habana Julian Castillo Jose Mendez .315 L. Haggerman 15-6 1910 Almendares Emilio Palomino Jose Mendez 7-0 .408 1910-11 Almendares Preston Hill .365 Jose Mendez 11-2 1912 Habana Emilio Palomino Jose Junco 6-1 .440 1913 Fe Armando Marsans Red Redding 7-2 .400 1913-14 Almendares Manuel Villa .351 Jose Mendez 10-0 1914-15 Habana Cristobal Jose Acosta 5-1 Torriente .387 1915-16 Almendares Eustaquio Jose Acosta 8-3 Pedrosos .413 1917 Orientales Adolfo Luque .355 Jose Acosta 2-1 1918-19 Habana Manuel Cueto .344 Jose Acosta 16-10 1919-20 Almendares Cristobal Emilio Palmero 5- Torriente .360 1 1920-21 Habana Pelayo Chacon Cristobal Jose "Cheo" .344 Torriente, Hernandez 4-1 M. Gonzalez, B. Jimenez, M. Guerra, Tied with 1 1921 [*] Habana Bienvenido Manuel Cueto 1 Julio Leblanc 2-0 Jimenez .619 1922-23 Marianao Bernardo Baro Cristobal Lucas Boada 10-4 .401 Torriente 4 1923-24 Santa Oliver Marcells Bienvenido Bill Holland 10-2 Clara .393 Jimenez 4 1924-25 Almendares Manuel Cueto .364 Esteban Mantalvo Jose Acosta 4-1 5 1925-26 Almendares Johnny Wilson J. H. Lloyd Cesar Alvarez 10- .430 Jud Wilson 3 2 1926-27 Habana Manuel Cueto .404 J. Hernandez 4 Juan Olmo 3-0 1927-28 Habana Johnny Wilson Oscar Charleston Oscar Levis 7-2 .424 5 1928-29 Habana Alejandro Oms Cool Papa Bell 5 Adolfo Luque 9-2 .432 1929-30 Cienfuegos Alejandro Oms Mule Suttles 7 Heliodoro "Yoyo" .380 Diaz 13-3 1930-31 Not O. Charleston Ernest Smith Martin Dihigo 2-0 [*] finished 373 Jose Fernandez 1 1931-32 Almendares Ramon Cueto .400 Alejandro Oms Juan Eckelson 5-1 Ismael Morales 3 1932-33 Tie: M. Gonzalez .432 R. Estalella 3 Jesus Lorenzo 3-0 Habana Almendares 1933-34 No championship held 1934-35 Almendares Lazaro Salazar Eleven tied with Lazaro Salazar .407 1 6-1 1935-36 Santa Martin Dihigo Willie Wells Martin Dihigo Clara .358 Jacinto Roque 5 11-2 1936-37 Marianao Harry Williams H. Andrews R. Raymond Brown .349 Estalella 5 21-4 1937-38 Santa Sam Bankhead .366 Willie Wells Raymond Brown Clara R. Estalella 12-5 Raymond Brown 4 1938-39 Santa Tony Castanos Josh Gibson 11 Martin Dihigo Clara .371 14-2 1939-40 Almendares Tony Castanos Mule Suttles 4 Rodolfo Fernandez .340 7-4 1940-41 Habana Lazaro Salazar A. Crespo 3 Gilberto Torres .316 10-3 1941-42 Almendares Silvio Garcia Macon Mayor .351 Agapito Mayor 6-2 1942-43 Almendares A. Crespo .337 Roberto Ortiz Cocaina Garcia Saguita Hernandez 10-3 2 1943-44 Habana Roberto Ortiz Saguita Hernandez Martin Dihigo 8-1 .337 3 1944-45 Almendares Claro Duany .340 Claro Duany 3 Oliverio Ortiz 10-4 1945-46 Cienfuegos L. Davenport .333 Dick Sisler 9 Adrian Zabala 9-3 1946-47 Almendares Lou Klein .330 Roberto Ortiz 11 Cocaina Garcia 10-3 1947-48 Habana Harry Kimbro .346 Jesus Chanquilon C. Marrero 12-2 Diaz 7 1948-49 Almendares A. Crespo .326 Monte Irvin 10 Octavio Rubert 8- 1 1949-50 Almendares P. Formental .336 Roberto Ortiz Octavio Rubert 5- Don Lenhardt 15 1 1950-51 Habana Silvio Garcia P. Formental, Vincente Lopez .347 Bert Hass 7-3 Ed Mierkowitz Charles Grant Tied with 8 1951-52 Habana Bert Hass .323 P. Formental Joe Black 15-6 James Basso 9 1952-53 Habana Edmundo Amoros Louis Klein 16 R. Alexander 10-3 .373 1953-54 Almendares Rocky Nelson .352 Earl Rapp Cliff Fanning Rafael Noble 10 13-4 1954-55 Almendares Angel Scull .370 Rocky Nelson 13 Joe Hatten 13-5 1955-56 Cienfuegos Forrest Jacobs Ultus Alvarez 10 Pedro Ramos 13-5 .321 1956-57 Marianao Orestes Minoso Archie Wilson 11 Camilo Pascual .312 15-5 1957-58 Marianao Milton Smith .320 Daniel Morejon Billy O'Dell 7-2 Norman Laker B. Robinson Frank Herrera 9 1958-59 Almendares Tony Taylor .303 Jim Baxes 9 Orlando Pena 13-5 1959-60 Cienfuegos Octavio Rojas .322 1960-61 Cienfuegos ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * Short season