La Brega: The Stuff of Champions: The Future of Puerto Rican Baseball — Episode Transcript
Alana: Laura Pérez, tell the people: Where are we?
Laura Pérez: We are in Caguas Puerto Rico, in the Ildefonso Solá Morales Stadium. This is one of my favorite parks, even though I’m not from Caguas, I have to say that.
Alana: Laura is one of the editors of La Brega, and she loves baseball.
Laura Pérez: It’s high stakes, definitely. Caguas, the home team, is losing at the top of the eighth inning. Today is the sixth game of the semi-final, and if Mayagüez wins today, they win the series and they go to the final, so people are pretty nervous right now.
Alana: We didn’t come for THIS game in particular. We came for THE game. Because if we’re thinking about spaces where Puerto Rican champions have dominated, it seemed obvious that we’d have to come to a ballpark, and bask in the joy of the fans.
Yvonne: Ay, Dios mío. Ay Dios mío, Dios mío, Dios mío. ¡Cogela papá! There we go
Alana: This sport is known as one of Puerto Rico’s three Bs: boxing, basketball… and baseball.
But there’s a sense that baseball is fading in the archipelago, that there are fewer and fewer stars, because the path to the major leagues has changed. And that it is harder and harder to be a champion.
In this stadium, as in so many places in Puerto Rico, nostalgia is everywhere. It’s so easy to gaze back longingly at the past.
Carlos: Yo, yo tengo 50. No, es mentira. Tengo más. Tengo 78.
Alana: All the fans we spoke with – all older folks – told us this:
Carlos: …es que la, la pelota en Puerto Rico ha decaído mucho.
Alana: …that Puerto Rican baseball isn’t what it used to be.
Angel: …es muy inferior a los que venían en en la época pasada,
Alana: The quality of the players has fallen, and so has the level of play.
Irma: Sabe gente que, que valía la pena. Esto son chamaquito.
Alana: Except, nobody could tell us precisely why. So what’s going on, exactly? What’s holding our champions back? And what does Puerto Rico lose if we lose baseball?
I don’t know much about this sport. But Laura does. She told me, for example, that in her mother’s living room, there’s only one photograph with someone who isn’t in the family. It’s a photo of Laura, at around age 15, posing with Roberto Alomar, one of the best second basemen in history.
So, you get it. That’s why I’m leaving you with Laura.
Laura: Baseball – or, as we say, beisbol – has given us champions on and off the field. And it’s so entwined with our culture that it comes out even in how we speak.
You get this a little bit in English too – like you might say that someone threw you a curveball when they hit you with a challenge you didn’t expect. But in Puerto Rico, it’s a whole other level. These days, one of our most-used slang words… comes from the game. Pichea.
ARCHIVAL – The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Bad Bunny: Pichea, that comes from pitch.
Bad Bunny taught Stephen Colbert how to use it.
ARCHIVAL – The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Bad Bunny: It’s like to ignore. I don’t want to talk about that, pichea, you know.
Laura: If you say “pelota” – that’s a word for ball – everyone knows what sport you’re talking about. In Puerto Rico, we’ve been playing baseball since before the US invaded.
In 1895, some guys who had learned the game in Cuba got together with some kids in Puerta de Tierra, near Old San Juan. They started to play with a ball and a bat, and that’s when Puerto Rican baseball was born.
Four decades later, the fans were already filling the ballparks of our professional league. And prospects from the US and the Caribbean would come to play in Puerto Rico, to take advantage of the high level of play and sharpen their own skills.
Puerto Rico saw players who would go on to be huge stars. In the 1950s, both Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax played for Caguas, for example.
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: On the mound, one-on-one in World Series Play for 1965. Sandy Koufax.
Laura: In Ponce, they had Frank Robinson. And in Santurce, they got the one and only Willie Mays.
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: That one is way back, way back, way back, well up number 600 for Willie Mays.
Laura: Puerto Rican stars also shone, and they went from our parks to the major leagues, including the Negro Leagues. The list is as long as it’s impressive: Luis “Canena” Márquez, Víctor Pellot, Rubén Gómez, Luis Rodríguez Olmo, Orlando “Peruchín” Cepeda, Félix Millán, Dicky Thon, Cheo Cruz…
And don’t worry, I’d never forget the great Roberto Clemente.
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: Is flying. Everybody standing a double for Roberto!
Laura: In the glory years of the 1990s, you couldn’t argue that Puerto Rican players dominated baseball. That’s when I fell in love with the sport.
I’d fall asleep watching the recaps of the best plays of the day in the majors, and I swear – it seemed like the best of the best were always our guys.
ARCHIVAL – National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
Announcer: Edgar Martinez’s third home run in the last two nights!
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: What a night for Carlos Delgado!
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: Roberto Alomar with a sensational play, to end the ball game – wow.
Laura: Those of us who grew up with these giants… we were spoiled.
Not only were they the biggest stars in the majors, but then they’d also come to play in the winter league here, and there was one year where many of them played for the same team.
It was truly the golden age of Puerto Rican baseball. But then…things changed.
After the 90s, the number of players from Puerto Rico in the major leagues plummeted. Take for instance: the All Star Game.
In 1997, eight players made the team. Seven years later, in 2004, we were down to half of that. And you could see that bad streak here in Puerto Rico too. In 2007, the professional league of Puerto Rico didn’t even play – they canceled the season.
So, of course, many people can’t shake this sense that – even though we still have talent – baseball’s best years are behind us.
I think there’s something deeper here. This story isn’t only about baseball or how good we are. It’s also about obstacles that make it hard to stay at home and achieve your dreams, in sports, or anything else. There are so many Puerto Rican kids who want to make it, and more and more, they have to choose between their home and their shot at greatness.
So, how can we help them succeed while also making it possible to stay in Puerto Rico? And what would that mean for our national sport, a sport that has given us so much?
From Futuro Studios, I’m Laura Noemí Pérez, and this is La Brega. In this episode… what it takes to be a champion in Puerto Rican baseball.
BREAK
The first thing I notice about this park in Kissimmee, Florida, is the silence.
There are Boricua baseball fans in the bleachers, but nobody is yelling or cheering.
The thing is, this is a tryout. The Puerto Rico Baseball Federation is looking for players to join the national team for 15 and under.
This is the fourth and last tryout of the season. The first three took place in Puerto Rico… and now, it’s time to test the young players in the diaspora. And they came from all over:
Person 1: Charlotte, North Carolina..
Person 2: Yo soy de Caguas, Puerto Rico y aquí vivo en Saint Claude.
Person 3: “So” vivimos en Orlando, aquí cerca
Person 4: Nosotros somos de Houston…Texas
Person 5: Aquí, de Kissimmee.
Laura: This is one of those opportunities that any young athlete dreams of: to represent their country. Like Gabriel Vázquez Rivas, who was born in Puerto Rico:
Gabriel Velázquez: Me encantaría representar a Puerto Rico. … donde yo viví y donde yo nací.
Laura: For these young baseball players, this opportunity will help determine if the sport keeps being just a game… or whether it becomes their career.
What you CAN hear in the park are the whispers of the parents who rush to give their kids that last bit of coaching.
Víctor Velázquez: Trata de buscar ahí una espa… un, en donde te sientas cómodo, y sigue así. Carga temprano y sigue con lo mismo, oíste.
Laura: This is Víctor Velázquez, Gabriel’s dad. His son is about to take his turn at bat. He wants him to look for openings, and to pull strength from his hip to add to his swing.
Víctor Velázquez: …y busca los gaps todo el tiempo. Y ahora, en esta, usa tu cadera con fuerza.
Laura: Gabriel is 14 years old. He’s wearing all black. His curls are sticking out from under his batting helmet. He really looks the part.
Damaris Rivas: Hoy tenemos una mezcla de emociones.
Laura: Damaris Rivas is Gabriel’s mom.
Damaris Rivas: Entre nerviosa, emocionada, esperanzada y – y contenta.
Laura: She’s nervous. But she’s also excited — and hopeful!
Damaris Rivas: Es orgullo boricua. (ríe)
Laura: And she’s definitely feeling that Puerto Rican pride.
All the kids here want to make the team, but Gabriel wants it so badly that this is actually his second attempt.
Damaris Rivas: Él siempre anda con su pulserita de Puerto Rico.
Laura: He’s always wearing a bracelet with the Puerto Rican flag.
Damaris Rivas: Él es bien patriota. Y esto para él sería una experiencia, eh, formidable.
Laura: His mom says he is patriotic, and that making the team would be a great experience for him.
A few weeks ago, Gabriel traveled from his home in Orlando to go to one of the tryouts in Puerto Rico. I saw him that day in a park in Camuy. When it was his turn at bat, our jaws hit the floor.
And although he was pleased at his performance at that tryout, today his goal in Kissimmee is to do even better.
Coaches: Gabriel Velázquez Rivas… Lanza. Atacar la base hasta mitad en la segunda b, nos quedamos en primera base y corremos de primera a tercera, como si tuviera un batazo pa’l out field. Hay que ser la tercera base.
Laura: Besides showing off his skills, Gabriel also wants to show that he’s made of the stuff of champions.
Because he dreams of being a star in what has been, for decades, the leading sport in Puerto Rico.
Gabriel Velázquez: Mi sueño es llegar a grandes ligas y nada este hacer buenas cosas con mi vida.
Laura: Gabriel’s family left Puerto Rico in 2018 after Hurricane Maria – going to the states to look for a better quality of life.
Damaris Rivas: Venimos hacia acá buscando una mejor calidad de vida.
Laura: In Puerto Rico, his mom, Damaris, was a teacher. His dad, Víctor, was a policeman.
For Gabriel, the youngest of the family, it was a huge change. He was 7 years old and didn’t speak any English.
Gabriel Velázquez: Yo no sabía nada de inglés. Era llegar a un lugar nuevo sin nadie, sin nada.
Laura: He did, however, speak the language of baseball. He had played with kids his own age in Puerto Rico, but when he got to Orlando, coaches said he was too good to play with his own cohort.
He got bumped up. He was only 7, playing with 10 and 11 year olds.
Gabriel Velázquez: Y yo me imagino que este hice bastante bien y empezó a jugar con los de 10 y o 11 años.
Laura: Gabriel is humble: he says he imagines he did well enough. But he’s still usually the youngest kid on any team he joins.
Last year, at age 14, he ended up playing Varsity at his high school with kids who were 17 and 18 years old. That’s when it hit him: he was good enough to try to make this a career. To try to make this his life.
Gabriel Velázquez: Me gustaría tener esto de profesión si de profesión y seguir haciéndolo en mi vida así.
Laura: Also, he’s very clear about who his favorite player is.
Gabriel Velázquez: A mí me gusta este Francisco Lindor.
Laura: Francisco Lindor is a shortstop, like him. And he plays for his favorite team: the New York Mets. And, crucially: He’s also Puerto Rican.
Gabriel Velázquez: Y es puertorriqueño también.
Laura: Like Gabriel, Lindor learned how to play in Puerto Rico, but he moved to Orlando when he was young, just 12 years old. From there, he developed his talent until he was picked in the Major League draft for new players.
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: With the eighth selection of the 2011 first year player draft, the Cleveland Indians Select Francisco Lindor Shortstop from Mount Verde Academy, Mount Verde, Florida.
Laura: Most kids who play baseball dream of a moment like this. But, if we look at the numbers, getting there is really the exception.
And for many families, there’s a growing sense that the path to the majors is easier to traverse if you leave Puerto Rico, just like Lindor and many other players have done.
In the case of Gabriel, his dad Víctor was the first one in the family to try to get to the majors. He played semi-professional baseball in Puerto Rico for ten years.
Víctor Velázquez: Pues mira yo juego pelota desde chiquito. Y yo jugué doble A como 10 años.
Laura: Víctor belongs to a generation of players in Puerto Rico who saw firsthand how, almost from one day to the next, the rules of the game changed.
Or, more precisely, they saw how the path to a baseball career in the United States was altered. That’s because one day, the draft arrived.
There are two main ways to get to the majors. One is the draft – for players in the US and Canada. And the other way, known as the free agency, is for international players – mainly from Latin American countries.
Before the 90s, Puerto Rico used to be part of the Latin American system, not the US. Major league teams could sign players in Puerto Rico as soon as they were 16 years old, and even without a high school diploma.
Here’s what would happen: a scout working for a particular team would identify a kid with talent, and eventually, propose to sign him. Often, it was a verbal offer.
That would tie the player to a major league organization, but it wouldn’t mean that he’d be a star. It wouldn’t even mean that he’d get to play. The only guarantee was for the franchise, because no other team could sign that player.
Edwin Rodríguez: They were signing players when they were 14, 15, 16 years old. They were sending those players way too young.
Laura: Edwin Rodríguez has been a player, a scout, and the first Puerto Rican manager in the big leagues. He’s seen first hand how challenging that system is for inexperienced prospects.
Edwin Rodríguez: I would say 99 out of a hundred, they’re not ready for professional baseball. When you are 16, 17, 18 years old, a Latin American player, uh, barely speak the language, don’t know anything about the American culture – it’s a very hard transition.
Laura: The majority don’t make it. They might spend a few years on a team, mostly warming a bench. And once they get cut loose, they are missing the education that would help them find a second career.
Edwin Rodríguez: They don’t even have a high school diploma. So it was very hard for the players.
Laura: In 1989, Major League Baseball announced a big change for Puerto Rican players. From the 1990 draft onwards, Puerto Rico would no longer be under the free agency system for Latin America. We’d be part of the draft, part of the US.
Edwin says it was good for the teams. In the free agency, scouts were betting that a promising 15-year-old would turn into a knock-out 22-year old player. It was a big risk.
Edwin Rodríguez: Anything could happen in those years. So it was at the margin of error, it was too big.
Laura: In theory, it was also good for young players. They would be more protected. In order to play professionally, they had to be at least 17, and they needed a high school diploma to get signed. So if baseball didn’t work out, they’d have an education to fall back on.
And before the draft, young players would get wildly different bonuses to incentivize them leaving school and signing with a team. The draft made things less exploitative, less unequal.
So, it’s clear that the draft has its advantages.
But it meant that the players who were coming of age in the 90s – like Víctor, Gabriel’s dad – had to adjust their expectations.
They now had to compete for spots with US players. And Canadians because they also joined the draft in 1991. It became a lot harder for Puerto Ricans to get signed.
That’s why some people long for the old rules. They point to how well it’s going for the now-biggest exporter of baseball talent in the Caribbean: the Dominican Republic, which is still in the free agency.
Edwin Rodríguez: I know a lot of Puerto Rican people keep saying, “Hey, let’s do, like, like in Dominican!” They don’t know what they talking about because they don’t know what was going on.
Laura: Edwin Rodríguez doesn’t want to go back to the way things were, but he recognizes that Puerto Rican baseball hasn’t adjusted to the draft. He was a scout for the Minnesota Twins when the MLB imposed that change for Puerto Rico.
Edwin Rodríguez: There was not too much time to make a transition or to even talk about it. Most of the people that didn’t even know what the draft was. We’re talking 36 years ago and still, in Puerto Rico, people don’t know.
Laura: This decision changed baseball in Puerto Rico in such a fundamental way, that today, a lifetime later, we still haven’t completely adapted to the new rules. Because along with the draft, came an uneven playing field.
In the US, high school is a big training ground for prospective baseball players. And if they graduate and are not ready to get selected by a team, they can keep going and attend a university with a strong athletic program. Obviously, these schools are where scouts tend to go to find talent.
That’s why when players get picked in the draft, we hear what school or college they come from.
ARCHIVAL – MLB
Announcer: From Arlington Country Day School from Jacksonville, Florida.
Laura: But in Puerto Rico, we do things differently.
Edwin Rodríguez: We don’t have a baseball program in high school in Puerto Rico. We still believe that just throwing baseballs and bats and gloves on the field, and let them play, that they will develop that way.
Laura The game is more community-based, kids play on teams and in leagues that are not associated with their schools.
Edwin Rodríguez: It is not like in, in the state that they play, you know, weekdays. And then during the weekend. They play three, four games a week. And here, if the player plays two games a week, that’s a lot.
Laura: And if they stay in Puerto Rico for college, their university won’t offer a robust athletic program for them to develop as a player, and get noticed.
And that’s why players from Puerto Rico are at such a disadvantage when they go up against those in the US, where some have already been recruited to high schools and colleges with elite programs.
Since the draft arrived in Puerto Rico, many people think it’s better to leave and try to get their shot at the majors from one of the 50 states.
Gabriel’s dad, Víctor, wasn’t prepared for the new system. He graduated from high school in the late 90s, and he wanted to try to get signed right away.
But he got some advice: go to college instead, and get signed from there.
Víctor Velázquez: Me dijo no firmes, vete para universidad. Pero yo era como completamente inmaduro ignorante y dije no, yo quiero firmar.
Laura: He was – in his words – “immature and ignorant.” So he said: “no, I want to try to play professional baseball without going to college”. He was still living with that mentality of the old model.
He says that in the end, he didn’t follow that good advice, and he also didn’t get picked by any major league team.
Today, Victor knows it: he’s never going to be a professional baseball player, but he’s still a dad.
Víctor Velázquez: No voy a ser más pelotero, pero sigo siendo papá…
Laura: He hasn’t forgotten the consequences of his decisions, and today he wants to use his experience to help guide Gabriel.
He recognizes that his son is growing up with a lot of advantages by being in Orlando. But still, they go to the park and run drills every week.
Víctor Velázquez: Pero nosotros practicamos casi todas las semanas. Siempre sacamos algo.
Laura: If Victor has to work late, he’ll call Gabriel and give him instructions.
Gabriel will work on his foot speed. He’ll do drills with cones, with a ladder, he’ll jump rope. He’ll do it all by himself.
Víctor Velázquez: Y el si lleva sus conitos, se lleva sus escaleras en el piso y hace su su ejercicio, hace cuica hace todo.
Laura: And not only that. Victor and Damaris both remind their son what his priority should be: going to college. Because to be signed right out of high school is really hard – you basically have to be a phenomenon.
Víctor Velázquez: La meta conmigo con Gabriel es universidad. El pelotero de high school para poder estar en el draft y irte en una buena ronda tienes que ser casi un fenómeno.
Laura: But even a phenomenon needs support from their parents. And they also need someone to notice them. Although Gabriel plays for his high school and also on a traveling team that plays around Florida, it wouldn’t hurt if he made it onto Puerto Rico’s sub-15 national team.
That’s why, when Víctor found out about the tryouts in Puerto Rico, he knew he had to tell Gabriel – even if it meant a last-minute flight. And Gabriel said YES, right away.
Víctor Velázquez: Y me dijo de una, vamos.
Gabriel Velázquez: …esos tryouts eran para representar a Puerto Rico. Así que yo no, no voy a decir que no.
Laura: And with so much drive to make the team, when they saw there was another chance to do the tryout closer to home, they couldn’t resist.
After the break, a champion in the making steps up to the plate. This is La Brega.
BREAK
Laura: In the park in Kissimmee, Gabriel has run the bases. He’s caught several groundballs. And he’s shown off his greatest strength: batting.
He knocked it out of the park. TWICE.
Gabriel Velázquez: I feel like I did pretty good. Fielding and hitting. There were some pitches I could’ve, uh, hit, but I did, I think I did pretty good swings on them. I got a little more comfortable and more confident.
Laura: It went well, but he was so focused that he wasn’t entirely sure in the moment. He had to hear it from his parents. And they confirmed it – yes, he did better here than in Puerto Rico.
Damaris Rivas: Le fue mejor que en Puerto Rico. Creo que sí.
Laura: Gabriel says he didn’t really sense a difference in talent between the competition in Camuy and in Kissimmee.
Gabriel Velázquez: In Puerto Rico, I feel like there was, there was more players for sure. Obviously there were some players that were better than some, but I feel like it was a little equal. It was a little the same.
Laura: But his dad, Víctor, knows that at least in theory… the players in the states, as we’ve said, have a leg up. They play in high school and train on a daily basis. Victor says, that means they’re stronger – but, in terms of ability, there’s not much difference.
Víctor Velázquez: No hay un programa deportivo en las escuelas —aquí, sí— y eso les ayuda a tener un físico un poquito más fuerte. Pero, en habilidades, bastante similar.
Laura: There are more and more families who decide to leave Puerto Rico for the states, to help their kids develop their athletic talent.
That wasn’t exactly the case for Damaris and Víctor – they went to Florida looking for better opportunities for the whole family. But their decision has meant that Gabriel’s experience is looking more like that of his idol, Francisco Lindor, than that of his own father.
When he graduated from high school in Montverde, Florida, Lindor was already a phenomenon. He went to the draft after high school because he was ready – but he could have gone to a college with a strong baseball program. He had already been recruited.
And that’s the landscape that all these players face when they decide which route to take.
If that’s the best way to “make it” in baseball, what does that mean for the players in Puerto Rico who want to stay? Because leaving their homeland can’t be the only option.
Alana: So this thing is supposed to kick off at 4. It’s 2:55 and there’s already kids and parents waiting to get in…
Laura: It’s a Thursday afternoon and Alana and I are in Caguas again – this time, to attend an information session about baseball. The seats in the hall are filling up.
Some 400 teenagers, many of them with their moms, are at this orientation because they feel overwhelmed.
Eduardo Pérez: ¿Cómo estás? Eduardo Pérez. Un placer, un placer.
Laura: Eduardo Pérez is here to moderate the event. He’s a commentator for Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN and a baseball celebrity.
Eduardo Pérez: I sort of relate it a little bit like to the GPS technology, where they all know where they want to go, right? In their case they don’t know where they’re at.
Laura: The idea of this session is to help families figure out how to get to that destination: Major League Baseball.
Eduardo Pérez: Hopefully this here sort of explains to them where they’re at right now and where they need to go. And everybody can take a different route. My story is completely different than the next kid’s story.
Laura: It’s true – Eduardo Pérez didn’t really need a GPS. His dad, the Cuban baseball player Tany Pérez, is in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown.
Eduardo went to high school in Puerto Rico, and when he graduated, he went to the states for college. He was picked in the draft in 1991, and played professionally for 13 seasons.
Eduardo Pérez: We’ve had such a rich history and great players that we thought: “Nobody can mess with us.”
Laura: It pains him to see fewer Boricuas in the majors now, even though the talent remains just as high.
Eduardo Pérez: We don’t have the thirty-some odd players in the big leagues anymore. You look at Javi Báez, you look at Francisco Lindor, they had to leave during their high school years and go to the states. What message does that send these kids?
Laura: There’s gonna be a bit of a reality check here today.
Many kids assume that because of Puerto Rico’s legacy in the sport, they’re basically starting out on second base.
But actually, in our entire history, only around three hundred players from Puerto Rico have gotten to the majors. And Eduardo wants to use that stat to get them to realize how difficult it is, and that an academic focus gives you a backup plan.
Eduardo Pérez: That even if you do sign out high school the education is going to give you that foundation to be successful if you do sign professionally and if you don’t it’s okay. You’re going to be okay, the safety net will be put in place for baseball to be able to take care of you academically. And man what a cool thing that would be.
Laura: Eduardo says the time to blame the draft is long past.
It’s time to adapt, and to get these hopeful young players to understand the process of getting signed. And… how to cope if they don’t.
So, roughly THREE HUNDRED players have made it from Puerto Rico.
Even though I knew those figures, this event made me see them differently.
All the Boricua players to have ever played in the big leagues wouldn’t even fill this room. And tonight, there are 400 kids here, and they’re all dreaming the same dream.
That’s why the organizers of this event are not mincing words. One of them is Edwin Rodríguez, who we met earlier.
Edwin Rodríguez: ¿Cuántos llegan a Grandes Ligas?
Laura: He’s giving it to them straight. Just one hundred out of every thousand who sign actually make it to a team.
Edwin Rodríguez: 10% make it to the big leagues. So out of those a thousand players that they sign every year, only 3% establish themself in the big leagues. Which, when you say established, we’re talking about three years or more.
Laura: That’s right: out of the thousand who sign, only THIRTY make it in a real way. The rest of them – the other nine hundred and seventy – will have to find some other dream.
In this hall, I saw kids and parents exchanging nervous glances. Edwin tells them to buckle up, because there’s a bumpy road ahead.
Edwin Rodríguez: ¿Los cinturones, están bien apretados? Porque eso es lo que hay.
Edwin Rodríguez: My intention was to make them aware. I was not trying to scare anybody. If they get scared, that’s even better. That means that they were listening.
Laura: Many families believe that the best option is for their kids to go to a university in the US. But Edwin has seen that plan fail too often. Not only is it expensive, but it’s also hard to navigate such a big change.
Edwin Rodríguez: So that’s the sad part, because they’re not ready. They’re not physically ready, they’re mentally ready. They don’t speak the language, they’re homesick. So it is a time bomb.
Laura: Our conversation confirmed what I was already sensing about this story: that instead of being just about baseball, it’s also about education.
It’s about the opportunities that young Puerto Ricans have – or don’t have – in their own homeland.
The proposal for adapting Puerto Rican baseball to the draft has been to establish private baseball academies, which …not everyone can afford. But the idea is that their students will go to class while also engaging in a rigorous sports program.
The stated goal for these academies is that their graduates will get baseball scholarships for universities in the US and eventually become baseball stars.
I reached out to two of the more prominent academies in Puerto Rico, because I wanted to get a sense of their system and how they measure their own success, but they didn’t respond.
Edwin Rodríguez: Well, you know, they have good intentions. They really, really believe in developing the youngsters. Right? But, I don’t think they’re developing that big league talent. So a lot of those Puerto Rican players in the big league right now, they went a different route.
Laura: The figures, Edwin says, just don’t back up the idea that the academies are the answer. And even if these academies worked perfectly, I keep coming up against the same questions:
Why can’t these players stay in Puerto Rico for college? And why have we accepted that their best option is to leave?
Edwin knows that Puerto Rico’s education system is facing an unprecedented crisis. The government closed more than 600 schools in the last decade and the public university system has been gutted.
But, even with these challenges, he thinks that developing a baseball program at universities in Puerto Rico could turn things around for the sport and for players who don’t make it – because they’ll at least have an education to fall back on.
Edwin Rodríguez: I’m pretty sure five years after that decision, you’re going to see the impact with more players in the big leagues, more prepared players in the big leagues, from Puerto Rico, because that, that’s the solution of that.
Laura: It may be too late for a lot of families who have already left. But the distance hasn’t made them feel any less connected to Puerto Rico. For many of them, baseball ties their new lives to their old ones – just like for the young player, Gabriel. Because this sport has given Puerto Rico so much for well over a century.
Edwin Rodríguez: You talk about Puerto Rico, the first thing that comes in mind is Roberto Clemente. That’s baseball.
Laura: Every athlete from Puerto Rico represents the country when they play in the majors, but the big leagues are not everything. When they wear the country’s jersey in the World Baseball Classic – the WBC – it’s a whole other level.
Edwin Rodríguez: I put that Marlins jersey and that was, that was great. But putting that Puerto Rico jersey in the WBC with all the players being from Puerto Rico related to Puerto Rico that, for me, has been the best experience of my career.
Laura: There’s no better example of this than Team Rubio: that’s the nickname for the roster that represented us in the twenty seventeen World Baseball Classic.
The team had bleached their hair, and the fans did too.
ARCHIVAL – WOLE 12
Newscaster: Las personas están llegando a pintarse el pelo
ARCHIVAL – Notiseis WIPR
Players: Nosotros amamos el béisbol y si el béisbol y el deporte es un urgente para que el pueblo se mantenga unido, que así sea.
Laura: Team Rubio was an extraordinary mix of players who were raised in Puerto Rico and in the diaspora, who were forged in the archipelago and in the states. We had stars like Yadier Molina and Carlos Beltran – and yes, like Francisco Lindor.
That year, in 2017, while Lindor and Team Rubio were delighting Puerto Ricans everywhere, Gabriel – the kid we met early in this episode – was still a boy who played ball in the parks of Puerto Rico. Today, he’s a teenager with clear goals, and parents who help him with their whole heart.
Damaris Rivas: Es sacrificado, pero uno lo hace con el corazón.
Laura: But still, they know that in baseball, there’s a lot that’s out of their control.
At 14, Gabriel has learned that lesson.
Gabriel Velázquez: Hola, Laura. Espero que estés bien.
Laura: This time, he didn’t make the Puerto Rico national team.
He sent me a voicememo to let me know, and to say that despite the setback…
Gabriel Velázquez: Voy a seguir practicando, voy a seguir jugando el deporte que yo amo, que es pelota.
Laura:…he’ll keep practicing the sport he loves.
He’s going to show up at the tryouts again next year,
Gabriel Velázquez: …y si en el próximo año pasa lo mismo, seguir tratando y seguir tratando…
Laura:…because it would be an honor to make his country’s team.
Gabriel Velázquez: …porque sería un honor representar Puerto Rico, mi patria, y donde yo nací.
Laura: After all, Gabriel is part of a long tradition of baseball.
It started in an improvised field in Puerta de Tierra and for decades it’s been giving life to our communities.
You can see our baseball diamonds from airplanes, illuminated by spotlights that turn our towns into landmarks from the sky.
It’s a tradition and a love for a sport that, for boricuas, is so much more than that.
With baseball, we learned early in the 20th century that our country is capable of offering the world big league talent. Literally.
And, despite the ups and downs, the obstacles and the forced migrations, our baseball stars keep shining.
Because baseball is still our flag.
THEME MUSIC
Alana: On the final episode of this season of La Brega: the Young Lords championed Puerto Rico in the 1960s and 70s. But first they had to learn about their own history, and their complicated place in it.
This episode was reported and written by Laura Pérez. It was produced by me and Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino, with editing by Maria Garcia and our senior producer, Nicole Rothwell.
Original art for this episode is by Elizabeth Barreto. Special thanks this week to Lilian Hernández of Central Florida Public Media, Hiram Torraca, Joel Cintrón Arbasetti, Noemí Sánchez González, Luis Pérez Sánchez, Deepak Lamba-Nieves, and the authors of “Negro Leaguers in the Puerto Rico Winter League,” by Adolfo R. López and Ángel Colón.
The La Brega team includes Nicole Rothwell, Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino, Laura Pérez, Liliana Ruiz, Roxana Aguirre, Maria Garcia, and Marlon Bishop. Our production managers are Jessica Ellis and Victoria Estrada with support from Francis Poon. And our marketing team includes Anhelo Reyes and Luis Luna with support from Paloma Pérez and Jackie Hill.
Fact checking this season is by Laura Moscoso and Tatiana Díaz Ramos.
Sound design by Jacob Rosati.
Mixing by Stephanie Lebow, Julia Caruso, and JJ Querubin
Scoring and musical curation by Jacob Rosati and Stephanie Lebow.
Our theme song is by IFÉ. Original music is by Balún.
Our executive producers are Marlon Bishop and Maria Garcia and me, Alana Casanova-Burgess.
Legal review by ProJourn and Clearance Counsel by Fisher Legal Arts; Jonathan Fisher.
Futuro Media was founded by Maria Hinojosa.
La Brega is a production of Futuro Studios. This season of La Brega was made possible by the Mellon Foundation.
Check out our website, labregapodcast.org, for transcripts and more information about this episode.
Talk to you soon. Bai!
