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Technorati"Marines shouldered bats next to their rifles when they imposed imperial order in a region by blood and fire. Baseball then became for the people of the Caribbean what baseball is to us."-Eduardo Galeano
When Hugo Chávez struck out in his December referendum aimed at overhauling the Venezuelan political system, a small group of overfed men raised their glasses in triumph: the assorted owners of Major League Baseball.Edward Bennett Williams once called them a "Den of Idiots," and for the last decade, the idiots have descended in vulpine fashion on both the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, marauding like free marketers on steroids in their quest for baseball talent on the cheap. Currently, 30 percent of all minor league players are from the DR alone.
Owners love Latin America for the same reason Disney can't get enough of Haiti: they, can sign children for pennies, treat them like trash when they're finished, and face contact lens-thin regulations for their troubles.
The impact on the athletes can be devastating. "Super Mario" Encarnación, once the most prized prospect of the Oakland As, was found dead in a Taipei motel room in October 2006, after an apparent drug overdose. He had been playing at the margins of the semi-pro baseball circuit desperate to not return home a failure to the DR. He returned, only when his friend former AL MVP Miguel Tejada, paid to have his body shipped back to their village from Japan.
Encarnación did do better than Lino Ortiz. The nineteen-year-old pitcher was about to be called up to the Majors when he died from taking an animal steroid in the DR looking for an edge. Steroids are actually legal and available over the counter, but their cost makes them prohibitive. Lino bought his from the pet store and met an all-too-early-death.
After the DR, the country that supplies the most talent in Latin America is Venezuela. There are now more than fifty players from Venezuela in Major League Baseball, including superstars like Johan Santana, Magglio Ordoñez and Miguel Cabrera. In the last twenty years, 200 Venezuelans have played in the Major Leagues with more than 1,000 in the minors. And yet despite this bounty of talent, the idiots are starting to scamper from Venezuela because Hugo Chávez is demanding that owners pay for the privilege of their pillage.
Lou Meléndez, MLB's vice president for international operations, was more than miffed to receive documents that called for instituting employee and player protections and requiring teams to pay out 10 percent of players' signing bonuses to the government. Chávez wants to tax MLB for what they take from the country.
"We don't pay federations money for signing players anywhere in the world, and we don't expect to do so. It's certainly not a way to conduct business," huffed Meléndez. "When you see certain industries that are being nationalized, you begin to wonder if they are going to nationalize the baseball industry in Venezuela."
As ESPN wrote, "There has been speculation, more internal than public so far, that Chávez, a socialist and self-proclaimed revolutionary who took office in 1999, will turn Venezuela into the next Cuba. In other words, some worry that baseball in Venezuela will serve to illustrate (once again) how politics spills over into sport."
The hypocrisy is stunning. Heaven forfend, there is nothing "political" about a multibillion-dollar business running roughshod over an entire nation with no accountability for the dashed dreams of the 99 percent who don't make it stateside. And there is surely nothing political about shutting down your baseball academy for fear that the natives might demand business practices that might approximate the humane.
Already, the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, and San Diego Padres have cut and run. "We just figured we might as well do it [then] to avoid some of the hassle of having to deal with some of the legislation that Chávez passes down there in hiring coaches, worrying about severance pay, and just getting in and out of the country," Juan Lara of the Padres told the media.
This tension exposes the rot at the heart of this relationship. Chávez dares demand regulation and the first instinct of the owners is to flee toward more exploitable ground. Not only is Chávez right to pressure baseball to actually give something back, other countries-the Dominican Republic, in particular-should follow his lead.
Every year, millions of Latin American children are shredded as they reach to escape poverty with a bat and a ball. It's long past time MLB gave something back to the nations they so blithely upend.
Even an idiot can see that.
Dave Zirin is the author of "Welcome to the Terrordome:" (Haymarket). You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com. Comment on this article at www.edgeofsports.com
15 Comments so far
Show AllAn excellent idea! I've long been of the belief that soccer in the UK would only really prosper, if nationalised.
You wouldn't believe the gall of some of the boardroom sharks of big clubs over here in the UK! They actually wanted to abolish the national league, in favour of a new one, in which the teams would play abroad much (presumably, half) of the time. In addition, they have already priced out most of the traditional supporters from their team's grounds, and shifted live coverage from free TV channels to premium channels
" NRA Freedom February 27th, 2008 11:33 pm
By the way, who is Lulu?"
Surely means president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who's often referred to as Pres. Lula, I believe. If not, then I also don't have a clue who this Lulu is or might be.
Every year, millions of Latin American children are shredded as they reach to escape poverty with a bat and a ball.
That argument doesn't really hold water any more. High-stakes "American Idol" prestige pursuits are no longer considered legitimate ways for the poor to escape "poverty". The capitalist system in fact only makes "poverty" appear more unbearable that it really is, turning a "select few" from "have nots" in "haves", or banner carriers for the capitalist system.
Instead of MLB "giving back" to Latin America, people worldwide should simply build the prestige and prosperity of their local communities, their local sports, culture, industrial production, etc.
Bravo..que viva Chavez y basta la con la explotacion. Maybe we should do that here around the sandlots of Washington Heights for this community of poor Dominican kids.
Good call braindead. Joe Morton: Though I was far from making it as a professional, I cannot give enough value to what being an athlete growing up has done for my life. Taught me disiciple, teamwork, motivation, social skills, how to lose and win gracefully, leadership skils among many others. I have a master's degree, and yes I love sports. Hardly think I am braindead, but if you chose to think so, I cant hardly convince you otherwise. If you dont like sports, dont watch them and stop griping about it to the rest of us. I certainally wouldnt call whatever it is that you do for "entertainment" fodder for the braindead, that would be rude and disrespectuful. But are not we all rude and disrespectful?
I have found those sweeping insults are frequent on these posts, especially if Chavez is involved.
Quick questions/commenty
1) Ok, 10 percent tax on the athletes taken and sent to the bigs. Where does that money go? Perhaps to the players, their families? To the population in his socialist "revolution"? Or to a corrupt government(yes it has been proven to be corrupt, but please, when you critique me because I dare to pull back the curtain, use sweeping generalizations about me being an ignorant gringo, I love those!)? It should go to the player, no? If not, that wouldn't the Venzuluan Govnt be apart of the explotation as well?
2)Ok, a couple of Latin American ballplayers have died- yes that is terrible- but can we also argue that due to the sick steroid culture, many, many, many more US youth are stricken in any number of ways (including bodybuilder Erick Fromm recently)? So I can hardly buy into the arguement that this is one more example of corporate explotation to celebrate Chavez and how he stands up to it. This issue is much bigger than that. Good for him, I guess, but bad for him if he denies the next Johan Santana from getting a shot at the bigs and getting his family out of poverty...
Sure there must be a more fair system that is less explotative, but if we dont like it, we can stop buying those $50 tickets, the $25 hotdogs and the $30 beers. As always, our $ is our most powerful tool...
I am not sure if people notice how few regular human beings participate in American Sport.
There are exceptions like Boykins in Basketball and Epstein in Baseball. But event those who look like average joes on tvs simply astound you in real life.
The sports that do not involve steroid-fed super-beings are not popular in america.
Soccer
Rugy(the parent of American Football)
Table Tennis
Badminton
Cricket(father of the bastard baseball)
Tennis(in danger of becoming a superbeing sport)
and so on.....
Anyone can give me a reason why this is?
I suspect it maybe because that is the mindset of America-if you are not a physical freak playing the game, then it must not be worth playing. Because the physical freak is the epitome of humanity. The rest is taken care off by reiligion.
I believe it is the contrary.
josephmorton: a distraction for brain dead americans, eh? Sweeping generalizations don't help your argument, nor do they make any of your solutions informed or palatable. There are many of us brain dead sports fans that can view these "distractions" with some sort of perspective. There are many problems with organized professional sports and even amateur sports the world wide. Dave Zirin is a sports fan and even an American (gasp). That's why it's important for him to speak up when there is an injustice in a realm he cares about. Somehow I doubt his (or my) interests are so narrow that we are so distracted by the bouncing ball that we cannot find time to care about other matters. If that were true, Dave wouldn't write, and I certainly wouldn't waste my time on Common Dreams. Spring Training is happening now after all.
Baseball in North America is not the only sport that exploit Third World hopefuls to the point that they make faustian deals and still wind up with nothing. This also happens in Europe, with the sport offering riches being soccer, the people being exploited being Africans, and the end result for those who don't make the grade (always a risk in a pro sports career) being left to fend for themselves on the streets. For every Didier Drogba, Obafemi Martins, & Abedi Pele, there are many thousands who never made it.
I am not a baseball--or sports fan--it is just silly distractions for brain dead Americans. But I seriously doubt that 30% of U.S. minor league basball players are from the D.R. But it is nt just U.S. baseball that is led by crooks and charlatans. Lulu has pointe out that Brazil turns out soccer players who are then snapped up by gringo soccer leagues. ONe solution is to have the kids sign contracts that must be approved by a sports minister who insistts that the raiding team must pay a minimum price that would ensure the player is compensated for at least five years even if he does not play. And a hefty compensation at that.
Baseball is a 19th century sport. It is fundamentally non-violent. This displeases Americans. They like the warfare of football, ice hockey and basketball. The popularity of extreme fighting sports that are working their way in from the margins of society are bringing us many steps closer to the emergence of gladiatorial contests in which contestants are legally free to kill each other. In a dying nation like this one in which it takes more and more to amuse people's boredom and fear, this kind of thing will be immensely popular and profitable. Isn't free enterprise wonderful? In any case, the first spring training games start today.
P.S. My ex-wife is from the Dominican Republic and she told me many times that baseball is their national sport; it is to that country what football is to Americans and soccer is to most of the rest of the world. Everybody but everybody plays baseball in the DR.
viva chavez! viva zirin!
"how politics spill into sport" You mean like having Congressional hearings regarding steriods?
Chavez is a gem. He is my adopted President!
So, is there something in the water in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela that makes people that live there particularly good baseball players, or are the baseball owners scooping up people from those countries because they can get them to work for peanuts?
If I were a gambler, I'd bet on the latter. And I'll be damned if I ever watch another baseball game again.
Viva Hugo! My sense of this situation is that MLB needs Venezuela a lot more than Venezuela needs MLB. My reason for thinking this is the stink being made by MLB. If there is a great big world out there just filled with budding major league talent then why squawk? Just move on to greener pastures.
As for potential major league talent in Venezuela, there is nothing stopping them from relocating to some other country (with expenses paid by MLB of course!) if they are that serious about pursuing a major league baseball career. This is why the comparison with Cuba totally bogus.
For those Common Dreamers who question why anything about sports should sully this blog, this is a just another case of priviliged people engaging in class exploitation and warfare against those too weak to fight back very much--except now at least in Venezuela they have a champion who will fight for them.