Why is this sport so popular?
It’s called America’s Pastime. In North America, The Caribbean and Asia, baseball is the king of Sports. In Europe, South America and recently in Africa it begins to win more and more fanatics. Intelligence is as important as strength, speed or any other physical ability, since it has the most extensive regulation between sports.
There is no other sport with as many statistics as this. If you love baseball, you probably love numbers. Every so often they invent or discover new statistics, it is almost like a living organism that keeps growing and becoming more interesting. Fans can spend hours arguing about what team, player, game, league... is better.
In the film Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, we see this sport from a business point of view, and as its strategy goes along with an efficient resource planning based on complex statistical analyses. Without the best resources, they knew how to order and take advantage of each piece to gain advantage over teams with much more economic power.
The island of baseball players.
Baseball was not invented in Dominican Republic, but it resides not only as a sports discipline, but as part of the culture that is breathed in every corner. Only in USA, Cuba, Venezuela and Puerto Rico is a similar passion for the sport created by Abner Doubleday.
In the Dominican Republic, similar to happens in Brazil with football, children grow up seeing the example of those who have been successful, and are motivated to fight for being outstanding players, because this guarantees their economic success and their promotion to the major leagues. In this way we can offer a better future to their families and community.
This season began with 84 Dominicans on the payroll of Major leagues, which represents a 10% total of the players in the best baseball in the world, this being the most numerous nationality after the same Americans.
Baseball: "is the goal for young people as they see a better future for themselves and their families. That's why they feel a lot of passion for it. ".
Junior Noboa, Vice president of the Arizona team.
I told you about how much I like statistics, here I leave one that I just invented, although the U.S. currently has more than 500 major leagues and D.R. 84, if we consider the populations of each country, we see that 1 out of every 131,000 Dominicans is a "Big leaguer" whereas in the Americans that number is 1 out of every 560,000. Dominicans are 4 times higher in this statistic. As the Dominican population barely exceeds 10 million inhabitants and Americans are much more than 300 million. That same statistic tells us 1 out of every 425,000 Venezuelans can presume to be in the best baseball in the world. This argument may reserve me in my next gathering with a Dominican fan on those who have better players.
Of the oil wells was also extracted baseball players.
The beginnings of baseball in Venezuela were given in the oil fields, with a lot of American personnel, who brought their traditions, among them to practice "the ball". Also for the time it was very common for a high percentage of Venezuelans to do Masters and specializations in American universities, where they practiced this interesting and striking sport. And so at the beginning of the last century began to sprout in the homeland of (Simón) Bolívar a runaway love for baseball.
Venezuelan children are formed admiring their idols in baseball stadiums. They dream of getting there and they strive for it. Venezuela is the third largest league country, 74, behind Americans and Dominicans, with 9% of these outstanding athletes.
Cuba, the fight to get out.
Liván and Orlando "The Duke" Hernández, are two Cuban brothers, prominent pitchers of the successful Cuban national baseball team, who due to the particular Cuban situation and the attractive multimillionaire contracts in the major leagues dreamed of escaping the island and give a 180 degree turn to their lives.
In September of the 95, Liván saw his opportunity during a meeting in Monterrey, Mexico. Already in U.S. territory joined the team of the Florida Marlins (Marlins de Miami since November 2011, when they changed its name and headquarters), where he highlighted as one of his best pitchers and with the Colombian shortstop Edgar Rentería would take them to first championship of its history.
It is assumed that a team with just 5 years of existence should not defeat the rest of the franchises with more seniority and resources, but someone forgot to tell the Miami team, who since then, were affectionately nicknameded as "The Miraculous Marlins" .
Curious fact, the prophecy of going back to the future: in the film you could observe a notice celebrating the championship of a team of Miami (the Crocodiles of Miami) in the World Series.
The amazing thing is that at the time of the movie out there was still no team to represent this town, which would eventually crown champion the same year predicted the successful saga that made Michael J. Fox so famous.
Upon escaping the younger brother, his relatives received sanctions that included the dismissal of The Duke of the selection with which he had won gold medal at the Barcelona Olympics 92, being relegated to sell avocados through the streets of La Havana to survive. In 1997, he managed to escape on a raft, crossing a shark-infested sea, being intercepted by The American Coast Guard and sent to The Bahamas for repatriation.
Thanks to the intervention of the New York Yankees, he managed to exile in Costa Rica while managing his visa, not without having signed a contract for 6.6 million dollars to join the set with which he got 3 World Series championships and in 2005 one more with the White Sox of Chicago, being the only Cuban with 4 rings of champion. The Duke is considered one of the best Cuban pitchers of all time.
Another escape from Cuban players by was the one starring the Gourriel in February 2016. Currently Cuba has 17 representatives in the major leagues, which is equivalent to 2% of that universe and ranks in the fifth place, behind Americans, Dominicans, Venezuelans and Puerto Ricans.
What are the most common difficulties for Hispanic players?
No doubt the biggest shock for a latin who comes to organized baseball is the language, not everyone has full studies and this is a great barrier. It is not the case of all, but if the many.
Once established, something that has cost them to handle many is all that money and fame. Some do not know how to invest their profits, and end up wasting on liabilities, without leveraging assets that increase over time.
There are cases such as Alex Rodríguez (A-Rod) who has managed to increase his fortune of more than 500 million dollars since retirement, and has multiple successful companies and even a girlfriend as famous and wealthy as he, the Puerto Rican Jennifer López (J-Lop). While others as the case of the same Liván Hernández, who has just declared himself a bankrupt, despite having obtained gains of more than 50 million dollars throughout his career.
i have seen it on t.v , i love to play it.... ;-)
@adityajainxds #thealliance
baseball is another world :)
This was a wonderful post. Well written, and I'm glad to see an article that isn't curated to two hundred and fifty words for the sake of an ADHD quick read get the vote format.
I absolutely love baseball. The World Baseball Classic is one of my favorite times as a baseball fan. Though I live in the USA I often find myself rooting for the Dominican Republic. As a child, (I was born in the eighties so keep this in mind), I read the biography of Roberto Clemente, and ever since, well, there's something to be said about overcoming adversity that moves my soul and helps me to better love those around me. This might seem ridiculous, it's just baseball, but there's something about it that's different than other sports.
Anyways, great post once again.
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You are right about the fame, it's not always so easy to go from slum kid to millionaire. So many fake friends, the sudden ruch of happiness and the feeling of invincibility that comes with the fat pay.
I think they should hire better managers. Most of them just carry a family member or friend as a manager and end up spending their money on frivolous things.
The language barrier is a real challenge. But if you're making big bucks you should be able to hire a proper tutor.
Good article here.
I am originally from New Zealand and have yet to really get into Baseball here yet, but this post was so interesting and so much info thanks for sharing
Thanks to you for reading and commenting @tattodjay. I'm glad you liked it, right now I'm writing another article about this great sport. Every week I aspire to have a new post.
Cool I look forward to future posts