The Eastern Stars - Mark Kurlansky [74]
Tartabull believed that Latino players had a much easier time in the major leagues than they did in his day because the academy system slowly integrated them into baseball as they came up: “Everyone thought you were trying to get their job. Today players help new guys. Back then they wouldn’t talk to you.”
They still don’t always. No one at the end of a distinguished career enjoys seeing a kid of any nationality brought in to replace him. In a classic example, the Baltimore Orioles superstar shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr., was moved to third base so that the young Manny Alexander could try out at the shortstop position. Alexander later complained that Ripken would not talk to him. The older star, a huge, towering man, just stared at Manny with his ice-gray eyes.
But Dominicans were becoming more accepted. Things had changed a great deal in a few decades. Dominicans were getting to Rookie League ball in the U.S. speaking a little English and having been trained in the fundamentals of the game. Older players, like Rogelio Candalario, the son of a Consuelo sugar maker, remembered how they learned baseball with little instruction: “It wasn’t like now. There was no organization. I trained myself. We used to watch American major-league ball on television and try to do what they did.”
The Angels also had their academy in San Pedro, on the city’s east side, in the rich ocher soil of the sugar fields that stretched to La Romana. Up the dirt road, in lush tropical growth that men hacked clear with machetes, was the fenced-off, spacious compound with two big diamonds and no guard, a striking change in a country where almost everything had an armed guard.
The facility was owned by the Universidad Central del Este in San Pedro. The Angels had been using it on and off since 1992 but full-time since 1998. This was an older, more threadbare facility than Baseball Towers, with a smaller dining room, one big room for bunk beds, worn tile floors, and no landscaping around the diamond—just a very serious baseball program. Rough-hewn and without the corporate feel of the Braves’ academy, it had red paint peeling from the shutters, and no air-conditioning. But it was clean—again with an almost military sense of orderliness.
Major League Baseball, which regulates academy conditions, did not require frills like air-conditioning. Aaron Rodríguez, who inspected the academies for Major League Baseball, said he mainly made sure there were no dangerous conditions, such as holes in the outfields, and that the kitchens were clean and provided nutritious food.
The Angels had six scouts around the Dominican Republic. When they found someone they wanted to sign, they called Charlie Romero, a lean, fit black man from La Romana who was the Angels’ program coordinator at the academy in San Pedro. Romero then traveled to where the prospect played and had a look before the player was signed. He usually signed between fifteen and twenty Dominicans in a year.
At the Angels’ academy, baseball began at eight in the morning with organized ball games. Then they spent the afternoon working on fundamentals, such as fielding ground balls and baserunning. They were served three meals a day and two snacks. It was mostly Dominican food—rice, beans, chicken—but it was considered part of their education to slowly introduce a few American foods, such as hamburgers for lunch and pancakes for breakfast. Romero said, “Most of our kids go to the States, and when they come back—wow—they put on twenty pounds. It’s the training and the nutrition.”
English was taught five days a week at the