An incredible day

We woke up in the morning with no plan at all except to show up at the baseball stadium in San Pedro and hope we can meet some fans, get some interviews, and see what happens. We ended up making friends with all the security gaurds who loved the ideas behind our project and let us into the stadium to take some good footage of th stadium. We ran into a trainer for the Orioles (primarly Tejada) and they let us walk onto the field and interview him on the pitching mound. He was incredibly nice and had worked for years in the academy system, so he had a lot of interesting stuff to say.

On our way out of the stadium we saw a big group of kids playings baseball in the street, literally on the same street that Sammy Sosa played on when he was little. Their baseball was a basically a ball of felt, and they had one glove for the pitcher that they shared between the ten (or so) of them. They were incredibly nice and we got some great footage of them too. As we left they asked for one big picture. Jon screamed at them "Que es su equipo favorito?!?!" (What is your favorite team?) and they all chanted a few times over "Las Estrellas Orientales". It was a neat moment.

This website blurred the picture a bit, but we got some really great shots of these kids.

They told us to come to the game 4 hours early so that we could see batting practice and maybe get a chance to meet a few players. They ended up acting as personal guides showing us around the field while all the players warmed up. We interviewed Daniel Cabrera, Fernando Tatis, Pedro Lopez, and many many many more baseball players all of whome came from the streets through the academy system. We had quite a bit of trouble making connections making calls through offices in the US, but here everyone is your friend and they were all just happy to help out. Jon and I were also obviously psyched to interview Daniel Cabrera (who is a giant by the way) since we´ve both been following his career for years. He is an incredibly nice guy. When we first met him he was too busy but he actually came and found us later in the seats so that we could get the interview done.

This is me interviewing Pedro Lopez, a Blue Jays 2B/SS Prospect.

The game was also incredible. Las Estrellas won 4-3 with a game winning hit in the 8th inning. The crowd showed a level of energy that only compares to the Real Madrid game I went to in Spain. The crowd goes crazy with every third out the pitcher gets and any base or walk that their team gets. Any big play anyone around us would give us five our grab our arm in excitement. The vendors served Roncitos (little Rum drinks), giant pieces of Dominican Cheese, Haitian Creole dishes. Not exactly Beer and Peanuts. We sat right behind home plate, but also walked around a bunch to get a feel for what it was like in other parts of the stadium.

This all felt very wonderful, but it really topped off nicely this morning when by sheer coincidence the Las Estrellas team bus drove by Jon and me waiting at a bus stop and they all stopped to wave hello, recognizing us from the night before. Their top security guy, who also runs a charity for young poor kids playing baseball in San Pedro, was jumping up and down to get our attention. DCab and Pedro Lopez both were waving out the window at us.

The most important part of all these stories is sort of hidden. The man whose house we stayed at, who drove us to the game, who spent 7 hours with us at the stadium during practice and the game was a stranger just a couple days ago. The men who showed us around the stadium and introduced us to coaches, players, American scouts, etc were complete strangers. This entire project has only succeeded so far because of the kindness and trust we have recieved from complete strangers. While we obviously are still cautious about crime, getting taken advantage of and whatnot, we have learned also that there is a lot of goodness in Dominican people (see Jon´s last post) and that people here are truly eager to become good friends with everyone they meet.

Buena gente...