The Eastern Stars - Mark Kurlansky [103]
As for baseball, Major League Baseball claimed it generated $76 million in business annually in the Dominican Republic, which would make it a leading Dominican industry comparable to tourism in the jobs and revenue it provided. Major League Baseball claimed that its Dominican players sent home $210 million in 2003 alone and that it spent $14.7 million on 30 academies that provided, directly and indirectly, 2,100 jobs, many of them in San Pedro.
Mayor Echavaría had a different way of looking at it. Even if major-league players spent money only on themselves and their immediate families, Echavaría argued, they were still investing in the town. “Sammy Sosa does a lot of things for San Pedro,” the mayor said. “When he first got his contract, he built a big house for his mother, and that is an investment in San Pedro. And he built 30/30. That’s an investment. Alfredo Griffin built Café Caribe, the disco on the Malecón. Most players invest here in real estate. It’s for their families, but it’s an investment. They mostly invest in goods and real estate.” To the mayor, even a shopping spree was a welcome investment.
But he thought the most important contribution of baseball to San Pedro was that “baseball gives an activity to the poorest children and it changes their lives and the lives of their families.”
George Bell wasn’t completely sure about the impact of baseball. Sitting at his desk in his small office crammed with fishing tackle, a large mounted marlin, and an array of golf trophies, he said, “They give too much money and it’s going to end up trouble: so much money and no education.” But when he, who dropped out of school at age seventeen to sign, was asked if he had any regrets about not finishing his education, he sat back in his chair, put his arms behind his head, and replied, “Not really. I’m very satisfied with what I did and what I’m doing.”
At the gate at Tetelo Vargas Stadium, the rut between the street and the parking lot is so deep that it takes great care to drive a car in without scraping its nose. But the stadium itself was one of the best-maintained properties in San Pedro and looked even newer than it was.
Most days of the year there was either some kind of a game or practice going on, with a good possibility that some kid on that field was a future major-league player. Which was why, although the stadium might have seemed empty, there were always a few serious-looking older men in the seats, some with folders or papers, sometimes one behind home plate with a speed gun to measure pitches: scouts for the major leagues.
If you had good hand-eye coordination, if you could run fast, if you could throw a ball hard, if you were extremely tall or left-handed or, even better, both, you had a chance of rescuing your entire family and becoming a millionaire. Why wouldn’t you try?
Once July 2 approached, anyone with a sixteen-and-a-half-year-old boy in the family had the hope of a better life.
San Pedro is not about baseball for everyone. For some it is still the city of Gastón Deligne and Pedro Mir. When merengue star Juan Luis Guerra wrote his popular song about San Pedro, “Guavaberry,” he did not even mention baseball. He sang about the Malecón, watching the sunset, meeting women, and drinking guavaberry. And it is true that it is very pleasant at the end of the day on the Malecón, looking past the rocks and the palm trees, watching the last rays of a hot sun light the bright turquoise sea, glowing against the backdrop of a dark-blue sky. It