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By Root 577 0

Caribbeans played in the winter during the zafra. But the San Pedro teams had the advantage of constant U.S. contact, since the sugar companies were always bringing in new Americans. In the years since the game had been introduced to the Caribbean, both the rules and the equipment had been rapidly changing. In 1873 it was ruled that catching a fly ball in a hat, a common practice until then, would award the hitter a single and the ball could not be put back into play. In the 1880s the number of balls for a walk gradually was reduced from nine to four, and the number of strikes to an out was changed from four to three. In the 1890s the distance between the pitching mound and home plate was increased from fifty feet to sixty feet. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the first two foul balls started being counted as strikes, greatly reducing the number of pitches in an at-bat. Every decade the game was considerably different, and Dominican players needed contact with the U.S. in order to keep playing current American baseball.

Communities at the mills, especially the cocolos, were knit extremely tightly, and within their world these games were closely followed and considered important. They were, after all, the closest thing these people had to a leisure activity. Baseball took on great meaning for the players and the fans, and the quality of their Cuban and American instruction from the cadre of the sugar companies was thought to be excellent. During the early decades when baseball was spreading in the Dominican Republic, the baseball played in the mills in San Pedro is remembered as the best Dominican baseball of the time. There is no way to verify this, and baseball has a way of fostering uncertain myths, but this was the beginning of the legend of San Pedro baseball. To baseball fans who ask, “Why San Pedro de Macorís?” the answer is not the water but the sugar.

CHAPTER FOUR

Who’s on First

While San Pedro was hosting regular hard-fought contests between the mills, Santo Domingo was developing their own league. For fifteen years there were two teams, red and blue: Ozama Club, named after the river on whose western bank the city was first built; and Nuevo Club. There were other teams, but these were the two with uniforms and an official schedule. They got their baseball knowledge from Dominicans who had spent time in the U.S.

Lulu Pérez, who led Nuevo Club, learned the new curveball from the Americans and taught it to his ace pitcher. A curveball is a difficult pitch to master. It is accomplished by pressing the middle finger against the seam of the baseball and snapping the wrist as the ball is released. This sends the ball spinning so that it seemingly goes straight but at the last moment veers off course. A good curveball appears to be going right at the batter and, just as he ducks or prepares to step back, drops into the strike zone and a strike is called. What makes it even more difficult is that a good curveball drops from head level to the strike zone or from the strike zone to below the knees, just before reaching the plate. Very few batters can hit a good curveball. But it is a dangerous pitch to throw. If it doesn’t have enough motion, it will either be a ball or fly predictably through the strike zone—a very easy pitch to hit because it is not a fast pitch.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, there were still only a few good curveballs, which of course meant that batters had little experience against the pitch that was invented in the 1870s by Candy Cummings. Even today it is rare to find a good curveball from a young Dominican pitcher who has not played in the U.S. In fact, good curveballs are fairly rare in general. But in the early years of the twentieth century, Lulu Pérez taught Nuevo Club ace Enrique Hernández how to throw one, and he did it so well that no one in Santo Domingo could hit it. Because Hernández claimed to have some Taino blood, fans started calling him Indio Bravo. At a time of undeveloped outfield defense, it was pitching that kept the score from going