In America, the road to professional baseball is easy to travel for those few talented individuals: Attract scouts in high school, choose the university or junior college interested in you, apply for the draft at age 18 and weigh your options. If you choose to sign with the team that drafted you, you head to the minors. If you go to school, you're inelligble for the draft until your 21st birthday or the conclusion of at least your junior year--unless you attended a junior college in which case, it didn't matter how many school years you completed .
That path to the Show wasn't illuminated in the other countries occupying planet Earth, however. As you know from my earlier piece Cubans and Baseball, Cubans interested in playing professionally needed to flee their home island in order to do so. Aroldis Chapman, the Cincinnati Reds lefty flamethrower, made it to the majors as early as he did thanks to a tournament in the Netherlands.
While in his hotel room in Rotterdam, Chapman decided to defect without telling anyone. He walked out of his room, through the lobby and into a car where his new life began. But in doing so, he left behind more than his old life. His defection meant separating himself from his parents, sisters and pregnant girlfriend that gave birth to the daughter Aroldis still hasn't seen.
Not everyone left their entire lives behind when moving to America to pursue their professional baseball dreams, though. As a member of the Montreal Expos, Vladimir Guerrero had his mother live with him in his apartment and when free agency struck, he told suitors he could only choose the city they both felt comfortable in. Having grown up in poverty in the Dominican Republic, and subjected at times to drinking puddle water, humility flooded Guerrero, brandishing him shy in the eyes of the American media.
But that shyness existed simply because Vladdy, even as he aged, always remained in tact with his youthful ways. His favorite scouting report against a pitcher was the one he made, hitting against the scheduled pitcher's character in baseball video games. That was obviously a joke of Guerrero's, seeing as how it didn't matter if he knew anything about the pitchers he faced. The man swung at just about anything and somehow found a way to connect with consistency; which could be attributed to his childhood in DR, where he swung a broom handle at the bottle caps pitched to him.
Guerrero finished his Major League career with a .318 batting average to go along with 449 home runs and 1,496 runs batted in. He was also the 2004 American League MVP his first year in Anaheim for the Angels. That season he batted .337, hit 39 HRs and drove in 126 runs. He earned over $125 million playing baseball in America--a pretty decent amount for a shy kid born in the Dominican Republic.
There were many Latin players like Guerrero, that lived through harsh times and found solace in throwing, catching and hitting a baseball. Some grew up with milk cartons for gloves and waited and dreamed daily of a scout passing through their village, witnessing the heat fly out of their hands or the unmeasurable distance they drove the ball. Others participated in the baseball camps and academies offered throughout their countries. Those academies were in place to make it easier for teams to find the next great hitter or pitcher, but since some of those academies were privately funded, investors would take a percentage (sometimes upward to 50 percent) of the signing bonus of the lucky players that caught their big break.
To some Americans, baseball was only a means for profit but elsewhere on this planet, others revered and respected the game. The Japanese valued the sport differently and filled it with ritual. Games could end in ties, and every seventh inning was the balloon release where fans held long balloons, sang their team's song and released the balloons in the air for luck. In a way, Japanese baseball was on par with European soccer, with how loud and passionate their crowds were.
Yu Darvish, starting pitcher for the Texas Rangers, pitched professionally in Japan before entering the Major Leagues. He was regarded as the best pitcher in the eastern hemisphere and brought as much awe as Aroldis Chapman did when scouted.
Since Darvish played in the NPB (Japan's version of the MLB), he had to be posted (think being placed on a transfer wire) in order to come to America. The posting system was simple: One would be posted and the MLB would hold a four day silent auction in which teams bid for the exclusive right to negotiate with the posted player. The team with the highest bid would have 30 days to negotiate a contract with the player, and if an agreement was reached, the bid would go to the posted player's NPB team as compensation for the transfer. If a contract couldn't be reached, the player's rights reverted back to his NPB team and no fee was paid, regardless of the amount bid.
Ichiro Suzuki came to America under the posting system after having spent eight years in Japan. He, like Darvish, was able to maintain productivity in his new environment, but that wasn't always the case. Some Japanese ball players came to the Majors and found themselves as shells of their former selves, i.e. Kei Igawa whom the Yankees bid just over $20 million for and signed to a five-year $20 million contract.
Coming to a new country, possibly alone, was sometimes the reason for supposed stars not panning out. Other cases it was the level of competition. Although the NPB was filled with great players, the best of the very best were in America. Hence partly, as I'm sure the lucrative contracts contributed mightily, guys like Ichiro and Darvish came to the States.
Baseball was one of the most complex sports on this planet, and like soccer, it was one of the more popular sports that could be played cheaply wherever there was space--giving youngsters in poverty the opportunity to live the American way.
but i personally give him the benefit of the doubt.
