The Eastern Stars - Mark Kurlansky [50]
In the 1970s, television came to San Pedro, which meant the opportunity to watch American baseball broadcasts. The notable increase in top-ranked San Pedro players in the 1970s and 1980s was due to many factors; one was the fact that this was the first generation to grow up watching major-league games. If someone in the neighborhood had a television set, everyone would come over to see the game. In 1971 the Bells got a TV.
When George was fourteen years old, his family moved to a larger house in San Pedro. Just as the streets in Santo Domingo were a little tougher than those in San Pedro, the streets of central San Pedro were a little tougher than those of Santa Fe, Consuelo, and Angelina: if a teenage boy wandered into a different barrio, he would be jumped and beaten. There were no guns or knives, and Bell would say years later that it was not as dangerous as a poor neighborhood of New York, but he learned early on to stick to his own barrio, not go out alone, and concentrate on baseball.
In San Pedro, talented young players found other talented young players. Fifteen-year-old Bell came to know Tony Fernández, the kid with the great hands and a bad leg who was always hanging around Tetelo Vargas Stadium practicing fielding ground balls. Increasingly, San Pedro was a place to play baseball. Out in the cane fields or in the center of the city, there were baseball diamonds everywhere. On weekends, boys would play nine hours a day. According to Bell, about two of those hours were spent arguing about plays. But that, too, was baseball.
On weekends, instead of fighting, San Pedro boys who loved baseball would take on the next barrio in a series of five three-inning games. Each team contributed twenty pesos, and the losing team would go to the street stands and buy oranges, tropical fruit, ice cream—whatever treats they could find—and the two teams would have a party. To give themselves an incentive not to waste time bickering, the teams would give twenty pesos for the umpire to hold. If he decided that the boys were arguing too much, he could keep the money.
Bell’s special talent was hitting. When he was twelve years old, he was paid to hit on a team for sixteen-year-olds. As he got older he played for the Ingenio Santa Fe team against Julio Franco at Consuelo. Bell played second base, third base, and outfield. He loved third base, his father’s position, but it demanded more fielding skills than he had. However, he was also drawn to the outfield, where his hero, Rico Carty, had played; in fact, Bell grew up to be a similar player: primarily a hitter. San Pedro was not just about shortstops.
Pedro González watched Bell play for Santa Fe, thought he was an interesting prospect, and brought him to a program in San Pedro. But it was Quiqui Acevedo who signed him with the Phillies for a $3,500 bonus.
Young Sosa was only five feet, nine inches tall, and very thin, and Acevedo wondered if he was ever going to develop a major-league body. Julio Franco, George Bell, Juan Samuel, Jose Moreno . . . by 1980, they had all been shipped off from their training program in Santo Domingo to American ballparks—along with dozens of others who would never make it to the majors. Juan Samuel was another Macorisano who would make baseball history by being awarded the Rookie of the Year title; in fact, he was the first player in history to reach double digits in doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases his first four seasons in the major leagues and was only one triple short of doing it again his fifth year.
Those four—Franco, Bell, Samuel, and Moreno—all had stellar major-league careers, even though leaving their island and living in America was