The offseason in the Dominican Republic

God is everywhere, but he lives in the Dominican Republic.

We have here most of the Fast food restaurants that are operating in USA, all of them have a Drive Thru, you go there and you order a Hamburger with fries and a Coke.
We also have drive thru here, but we have something that in the United States of America does not exist, we have alcohol in our cars, here the alcohol related accidents are very low, but in the US it’s not like that.

In the DR people start drinking at very low age, that’s does not mean that the DR is a AA branch, but we do have very high tolerance to alcohol, our beer is 6% of alcohol.

I know you are asking your self what that have to do with Baseball? Well, when our players come here in the off season they come with money to spend, lot’s of money and a bunch of friends to impress.

Some players spend the months of October, November and December going into clubs and drinking staying late and buying fancy cars.

Just imagine for a kid that had nothing and suddenly having it all, most of them does not get proper guidance and have the wrong friends.

The most recent case was Milwaukee’s Luis Martinez who shot three times a man in a parking lot, he claims it was in self defense, but I ask myself, why did he had a gun in the first place?

In the 70’s Ex Astro Cesar Cedeño was with a woman in a Motel Room, the woman was shot to death, The Astros pull some connections and Cedeño was released and flew to Houston.

Dominican Players Belongs to Baseball Teams here, most of them play here until they are established in MLB, to some players playing here had give them a second chance to play in the big leagues, the most recent examples are ex-dodgers Henry Rodriguez and Jose Offerman, both of them were key player for Licey to obtain their 18th national championship.

In the other hand are player like Raul Mondesi that spend their Winter Partying, he also sponsors a local Basketball team in his native town of San Cristobal and a Merengue Band, Mondesi also owns Mondi Disco, a discotheque. Mondesi only played 3 or 4 games with The Cibao Eagles, but in contrast is Miguel Tejada, that guy sign a 72 million contract and played like a Rookie trying to win a spot in the team.

Many players have been involved in legal troubles here, but if we consider that these guys grew up in extreme poverty with no education most of them have accomplished a lot and deserve our respect and love.

To give and example Sammy Sosa is one the most popular person’s in Chicago and many cities. But here people look at him in a wrong way, when he was younger he got in a lot of trouble here, but now he’s a model citizen.
Some player arrived in the united states without knowing a word of English, now they learned basic English in the academies, that way they can at least communicate with their coaches and fellow ballplayers.