Word: andujar
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...Joaquin Andujar, pitching ace of the St. Louis Cardinal staff who last week became the season's first 20-game winner, was sitting in Dodger Stadium watching Los Angeles Outfielder Pedro Guerrero taking batting practice. Andujar's thoughts about the perennial .300 hitter went beyond the manicured Los Angeles diamond back to the rocky fields of San Pedro de Macoris, a hardscrabble town in the Dominican Republic where, as a teenager, he had first hurled fastballs and curves to Guerrero. Both Andujar, 32, and Guerrero, 29, are the sons of sugarmill workers, and there was little money. But, the pitcher...
...settle permanently in the U.S. Added to the pull of home is the star players' status in San Pedro as demigods who can earn more in one year than their fathers did in a lifetime. To them, the U.S. remains a sort of fabulous offshore branch office. Says Andujar: "I love the United States. Every 15 days when I get paid, I say, 'God bless America!' " Still, he has built a new home in San Pedro, and on the terrace at Tio Miguel, a waterfront restaurant with a newly installed satellite dish to pull in the games from the States...
...help. "I wanted to be just like Rico Carty," says Cleveland Pitcher Ramon Romero. "Maybe someday I'll be someone's hero." Mindful of his own debt, Oakland's Griffin supplies uniforms, bats and balls to a San Pedro sugar-mill team called, appropriately enough, Estrellas de Griffin. Andujar spends much of the off-season coaching teenage players there. Says he: "I could go to the beach and have a good time, but they dream of coming to the United States to play professional baseball. That's why I try to help them." That, too, explains why San Pedro produces...
...fighters who are ranking contenders (Cruiserweight Carlos "Sugar" DeLeon, from Puerto Rico, is world champion). Almost 100 of the roughly 1,000 players in major league baseball at the beginning of the season were born in Latin America. A Hispanic All-Star team might include Pitchers Fernando Valenzuela, Joaquin Andujar and Willie Hernandez; Infielders Rod Carew, Damaso Garcia and Dave Concepcion; Outfielders Tony Armas and Pedro Guerrero...
...Game 4. Thomas started to scowl but burst out grinning. In fact there was almost no ugliness to this show at all, except for a profane few minutes in the final game when hefty Home Plate Umpire Lee Weyer had to dance the Cardinals' sore-shinned pitcher Joaquin Andujar away from Brewer Second Baseman Jim Gantner, who had said something about a hot dog. During the playoffs, the Cardinals' rookie centerfielder, Willie McGee, was slurred on television as resembling the movie creature E.T. But McGee, who hit two home runs in one World Series game, had his revenge...