I wasn’t ignoring the Dominican Republic until now. I wanted the final featured team to be a showstopper.
In the post about Cuba, I mentioned that Castro’s emergence put an end to the run of great players from Cuba coming to the major leagues. In the meantime, the Dominican Republic, which didn’t send its first player to the big leagues until 1956, has become a baseball factory of sorts.
That first player was Ozzie Virgil Sr., the father of the All-Star catcher, and perhaps best remembered now as one of Dick Williams’ coaches at several stops. In 2010, the Dominican Republic will send player No. 500 to the show. Dominicans now account for about 10 percent of major league rosters.
As Whitey Herzog said a few years ago, the kids there play the game the way youngsters once played it here – all the time. But it’s more than that for them. It’s a means to an end
With the success of players like Pedro Martinez or Manny Ramirez, the youngsters see baseball as a way off the island – and to a life with things they can only imagine if they are growing up in poverty, as many are.
The man, or “El Hombre,” now is Albert Pujols. His success already has him as a certain Hall of Famer; it’s just a matter of how high he can go. He’s the 10th player to win three or more MVPs. Some of the other three-time MVPs: Berra, DiMaggio, Mantle, Musial, Schmidt. Albert is up there already, and he doesn’t turn 30 until next year.
This roster is powerful, and evolving. You might be surprised at some of the names missing, but it was very difficult to chop the last five or so. If we continue through the years with this project as I hope, I expect to see a lot of changes on this thing, perhaps year to year. (If you’re a young Dominican-born player, and you want to be on this team for a long time, I suggest taking up catching.)
Manager Felipe Alou, who would probably have been a starter on an all-Dominican team a couple of decades ago, has some tough choices to make. If he wanted to, he could have an all-offense team with David Ortiz at first base, Pujols at third, Alfonso Soriano at second and any three guys in the outfield, Manny Ramirez in left and perhaps Vlad Guerrero or Sammy Sosa in center in place of Cesar Cedeno, the only true CF on the roster. The defense would be suspect, to say the least.
Even with a more defensively-minded group on the field, this team will have no problem putting runs on the scoreboard. When Pedro or Juan Marichal is on the mound, it is going to be extremely difficult to beat. The rest of the time, I’m not so sure. And the bullpen might be a little frightening at times. But it is the best of the international group, a solid contender for the title, and is only getting better all the time.
Thanks for following along. That’s it for the teams, although we may go back and revisit a few of the rosters before we start playing. It has been a lot of fun on this journey, looking at each of the states and the corners of the world that have produced our players.
Before we begin, we’ll take a look at the whole thing, and then we’ll break our teams down into their groups.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC DOMINICANS
3B Adrian Beltre
RH Armando Benitez
OF Cesar Cedeno
RH Bartolo Colon
RH Octavio Dotel
CA Tony Eusebio
SS Tony Fernandez
UT Julio Franco
OF Pedro Guerrero
OF Vladimir Guerrero
RH Juan Guzman
RH Juan Marichal
RH Pedro Martinez
RH Jose Mesa
CA Miguel Olivo
1B David Ortiz
RH Alejandro Pena
CA Tony Pena
2B Placido Polanco
1B Albert Pujols
SS Hanley Ramirez
OF Manny Ramirez
RH Jose Rijo
UT Alfonso Soriano
OF Sammy Sosa
RH Mario Soto
SS Miguel Tejada
RH Jose Valverde
Next: Overview.
Base instincts 