US embassy cable - 05SANTODOMINGO4776

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SANTO DOMINGO 004776 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR WHA, WHA/CAR, CA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: DR, SOCI, CVIS 
SUBJECT: BASEBALL:  A DOMINICAN CULTURAL OBSESSION 
 
 
1.  Baseball season has begun in the Dominican Republic. 
Baseball is much more than a sport or even a national 
pastime; it represents the pulse of the Dominican culture. 
Baseball began as a recreational activity for sugar cane 
workers and has become the most famous Dominican export.  One 
in six players in the American League is from Latin America, 
the majority of them coming from the towns located on the 
southeastern coast of the Dominican Republic.  About 750 
Dominican baseball players are currently playing in the 
United States with 140 in the major leagues.  In addition to 
being a popular pastime, baseball offers the hope of a way 
out of poverty to many young Dominicans. 
 
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History of Dominican Baseball 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
2.  Caribbean baseball began in 1866 on the island of Cuba 
when American sailors taught Cubans baseball.  During the 
Cuban ten-year war (1868-1878) many Cubans fled to the 
Dominican Republic, bringing with them the game of baseball. 
In the sugar mill towns of San Pedro de Macoris and La 
Romana, Dominican and American mill operators encouraged 
their sugarcane workers to participate in baseball during the 
six-month &dead season8 when sugar cane requires the least 
maintenance.  Soon various sugar mill teams began competing 
against one another in organized leagues for championships. 
3.  Dominican baseball was forever changed under the 
1930-1961 dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.  With 
Trujillo,s involvement, baseball soon began to resemble more 
of an industry than a sport.  In 1936 he changed the name of 
the capital city to &Ciudad Trujillo8, a year later 
Trujillo merged the two rival teams from Santo Domingo (Licey 
and Escojido) and renamed the team "Ciudad Trujillo Dragons8 
for the 1937 baseball series.  The three-team league of 1937 
brought together some of the best players money could buy. 
The managers acquired skilled players from throughout the 
Western Hemisphere.  Trujillo spent large sums on developing 
the Cuidad Trujillo Dragons.  They won the series, but this 
win came at the cost of much sacrifice for the country. 
4.  Pro baseball did not return to the island for 14 years, 
until 1951, with the assistance of a few wealthy Dominicans. 
Dominicans have just observed the 50th anniversary of the 
opening of the first baseball stadium -- in 1955 dictator 
Trujillo commissioned the undertaking, which was constructed 
at the cost of 3.2 million pesos -- including the 1 million 
pesos paid to Trujillo's wife Maria for land that she had 
acquired shortly before at one-fifth of the price.  Trujillo 
Stadium was equipped with eight stands of high-intensity 
lighting.  It had a capacity of 14, 065 spectators but 
regularly received as many as 24,000.   The same year, 
Dominican pro baseball changed its schedule to a winter 
series.  This allowed an amateur league to flourish during 
the summer, but provided valuable opportunities to the 
players, because now U.S. pro leagues and the Dominican 
league were on separate schedules. 
5.  Today the professional Dominican league consists of six 
teams: Tigres del Licey, and Leones de Escojido of Santo 
Domingo; Estrellas Orientales of San Pedro de Macoris; 
Aguilas del Cibao of Santiago; Azucareros del Este of La 
Romana; and the Pollos Nacionales of San Francisco de 
Macoris.  Each team plays a sixty-game schedule that begins 
the end of October and runs through February.  This winter 
season starts after the end of U.S. play and many 
Dominican-American baseball superstars return to the 
Dominican Republic to play.  For example, New York Mets 
superstar, Pedro Martinez will pitch for the Tigres de Licey 
this season. 
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Baseball Academies 
------------------------------- 
 
6.  In the 1970,s entrepreneurs developed baseball training 
facilities in the Dominican Republic to train Dominican youth 
and to assist with full-time recruitment.  These &baseball 
academies8 are factories of dreams, following a step-by-step 
process of recruiting talented athletes, challenging and 
refining them through training, and then exporting them as 
professional players to major and minor league teams in the 
United States. 
7.  The migration of talented baseball players benefits the 
sport in both countries, because often players return to play 
in Dominican leagues.  They participate in the remittance 
economy.  In 2005 Dominican Republic,s remittances, or 
&remesas,8 were 17.4 percent of the gross domestic product 
(GDP), the 4th largest in Latin America. 
8.  The overwhelming popularity of baseball is due in part to 
a lack of viable career choices for young Dominicans with 
little education from poor families.  Those who succeed 
receive a signing bonus and a first-year salary that is 
approximately seven times more than the average Dominican 
salary.  In addition to their salaries they receive food, 
lodging and health care. 
9.  All 32 major league teams have scouting organizations in 
the Dominican Republic and 31 have baseball academies.  Even 
the Tokyo Yamiyouri Giants of the Japanese League have an 
academy in the Dominican Republic.  Scouts from these teams 
search throughout the island, holding multiple try-outs.  The 
lucky few are usually between the ages of 17 and 18.  Many 
candidates and even successful selectees manage to obtain 
birth certificates that have been altered to present them as 
younger than their actual ages. 
 
10.  The U.S. consulate processes visa applications for all 
U.S.-bound players.  In 2004 consular officers detected a new 
scam: newly-recruited players were accepting money to enter 
into marriages of convenience, so their &spouses8 could 
ride into the United States on the visas.  As a result, some 
promising players had their fraudulent visa applications 
turned down, a permanent bar to their desired careers. 
11.  Today baseball players of humble origins such as Sammy 
Sosa, Pedro Martinez, and Manny Ramirez, are products of 
Dominican baseball camps, and they are some of the wealthiest 
Dominicans. 
 
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Conclusion 
---------------- 
 
12.  As baseball season begins another year, it continues to 
be more than a sport.  It is central to Dominican culture and 
perhaps more influential than any other cultural element, 
even including Catholicism and merengue music.  Dominicans 
follow professional baseball closely.  During the U.S. season 
the sports sections of all Dominican newspapers regularly 
carry entire articles dedicated to the performance and 
development of individual Dominican players on their 
respective teams.  Dominicans have plenty to be proud of. 
The last two American League Most Valuable Players (MVPs) are 
Dominican:  Miguel Tejada (2004) and Vladimir Guerrero (2005). 
 
13.  But for every Dominican player who makes it to the major 
leagues, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of little boys 
without shoes swinging bats made from tree limbs and using 
gloves made from scraps of canvas, practicing and hoping 
they, too, can escape poverty by making it to the big leagues. 
KUBISKE