Word: pedro
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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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...
...journey of two local boys to the big leagues would be the talk of any other town. But in San Pedro (pop. 123,000), theirs are just two of many tales. For while San Pedro turns out a respectable amount of sugar, it refines ballplayers in unrivaled numbers. No other community of its size anywhere has produced so many big league players--some 270 in the past 15 years. A dozen Macoristas are currently playing in the majors, and about 140 more are on minor league teams...
...Pedro is a sleepy town, and there is little to do," explains Oakland A's Shortstop Alfredo Griffin. "Baseball is the big thing." But what makes Macoristas so good at the game? "It's the good weather," suggests Atlanta Braves Caribbean Scout Pedro Gonzales, who was born there. "It could be the water or the diet. No one knows," says Cleveland Indians President Peter Bavasi, whose Macorista shortstop, Julio Franco, 24, went into last weekend hitting .294. Says Franco simply: "People are poor. They want to play ball." Still, the town has no corner on poverty, sunshine or major league...
...embarrassar to mean "embarrass," which is what happens when that word is mistaken for embarazar, a Spanish word that sounds the same but means "to become pregnant." Moreover, many U.S. Hispanics have grown up hearing so much Spanglish that they are not sure which words are really English. Says Pedro Pedraza of the Puerto Rican studies department at Manhattan's Hunter College: "I've heard of Puerto Rican kids asking their parents how to say 'ice cream' in English...
...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...