Word: pedro
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...south coast 40 miles from Santo Domingo, San Pedro began work on its two main export crops, sugar and baseball talent, more or less simultaneously. At the turn of the century, the game was cultivated by newly arrived American owners of the sugar mills, who sponsored company teams in local competition. The mill workers were good players, in part, it is said, because wielding machetes in the cane fields had strengthened their arms. Ensuing years of team rivalry and the 1916-24 occupation by U.S. Marines helped make America's national pastime San Pedro's major social activity...
...outstanding Dominican players--including future Hall of Fame Pitcher Juan Marichal, Rico Carty and the three Alou brothers, Felipe, Jesus and Matty--went off to the U.S. and major league success. Impressed, the Dominican government built three professional-quality parks on the island, one of them in San Pedro. Today the town draws youngsters from other communities who move there to play on San Pedro's 200 teams...
Four major league clubs--the Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros--now run permanent baseball camps in San Pedro. Says New York Mets Scouting Director Joe McIlvaine, whose staff keeps tabs on Dominican boys as young as 14: "If we get calls from San Pedro and another town there, we give the boy from San Pedro the first look." In 1984 the recruiting rules were tightened to protect young players; scouts who once signed athletic teenagers at first glance on the streets of San Pedro must now obtain proof that the boys are at least 17. Still...
...most Macoristas do not 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...
...leagues, and those who have are often there to 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...