All the ugliness vanishes in a moment-the time it takes Carlos Baerga to pirouette sweetly over a sliding runner at second base, or Juan Gonzalez to turn a baseball into a blur disappearing over a distant billboard.
The pain and hard feelings of the strike of ’94-and, probably, ’95, too-will linger for years. None of that will be easy to forgive or forget.
But never underestimate the beauty of baseball. While the owners continued to haggle about the future of the game last week in Chicago, on the sun-scorched fields of Puerto Rico, baseball, pure and simple, is thriving in all its glory.
Baseball without national anthems or seventh-inning stretches. Where pina coladas are the beverage of choice and kids get autographs from batters on deck. Where opposing pitchers live with bottle rockets bursting overhead and the brightest light in the outfield comes from the neon glow of red and white foul poles.
“Fun is the one thing that will always be a part of baseball,” says Henry Cotto, who played for the 1984 division-winning Cubs and spent this winter looking for work until he signed last Thursday to play for Caguas.
“Down here it’s baseball with a Latin style. But it’s still baseball.”
More than that. It’s major-league baseball. Some 50 big-league players and top prospects are keeping their skills sharp in the fifth month of the strike by playing in Puerto Rico.
Besides Baerga and Gonzalez, other big-league All-Stars playing in the noisy little bandbox parks of the island include Roberto Alomar, Ivan Rodriguez, Ruben Sierra, Edgar Martinez and Wil Cordero.
Three Chicago players-Rey Sanchez of the Cubs and Joey Cora and Roberto Hernandez of the White Sox-plus top Sox prospect Ray Durham (Triple-A Nashville in ’94) are tearing up the winter league.
If anything, the strike has been good for Puerto Rican baseball. Baseball had been losing public interest in Puerto Rico. This year’s influx of top talent has changed that.
“Basketball was taking away fans a couple years ago,” says San Juan manager Luis “Torito” Melendez. “Now with all the big-leaguers, baseball is No. 1 again. It’s a passion again.”
“That’s the only positive thing about the strike, from my point of view,” says Tom Gamboa, manager of the Mayaguez Indians. “We’ve really upgraded the quality of players, and the fans love it.”
So do the players, who relish the opportunity to be out on the field again.
“It’s fun because this is what you want to be doing, wearing a uniform again,” says Sanchez, who was named Player of the Week two weeks ago and was leading the league in hitting with a .372 average going into the weekend.
“I get to come down here, see my family, stay in shape and get paid a little.”
A little pay, for Sanchez and other proven major-leaguers, is $4,500 to $5,000 a month for the 54-game regular season. A proven Double-A player can expect $2,500 to $3,000 a month. Triple-A prospects earn around $3,500.
The pay may not be big-league, but the play surely is.
Sanchez, for example, is on a better team now than before the strike. The San Juan Senators, last year’s Puerto Rican League champions, have Sanchez at short, Alomar and Baerga alternating at second base and designated hitter, Edgar Martinez of the Mariners at third, former Cub Carmelo Martinez at first and an outfield of Edwin Alicea, Colorado’s Trinidad Hubbard and Mets center-fielder Ryan Thompson.
San Juan’s catcher, Carlos Delgado of the Blue Jays, has a shot at becoming the first player since former Cub Hector Villanueva in 1990-91 to win a Triple Crown in the Puerto Rican League with a .337 average, 10 homers and 29 runs batted in through the first part of the season.
“You throw any four quality starters and a closer on that team and they can compete with any club in the majors,” says Roberto Hernandez, who is coming off a disappointing season with the Sox but has an 0.87 earned-run average and is tied for the league lead with 10 saves.
“The quality of players down here makes the season I’m having a lot more gratifying.”
Hernandez is the closer for the Mayaguez Indians, who came into this weekend first in the six-team league. The top four teams qualify for a 12-game, round-robin playoffs in January, and the survivors meet in a best-of-nine series for the championship.
Puerto Rico’s champion then faces the winners of the three other winter leagues-the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Mexico-in the Caribbean Series Feb. 4-9 at San Juan.
The pressure to win the Puerto Rican League and then the Caribbean Series is enormous.
“Especially for our team,” says San Juan’s Melendez. “We’ve got the names. People expect us to win. You might have the best team on paper, but we’ve got to prove it to the people. The fans here will jump on your case real quick.”
Theoretically, that could be dangerous because the fans pretty much have the run of ballparks. Kids scramble over fences and onto the field before, after and, sometimes, during games. They climb onto dugout roofs and lean in asking for autographs between innings.
Until the playoffs, few teams draw well. The most expensive seat costs just $5, and children often are admitted free. Even so, attendance this year has averaged from 2,900 at Ponce on the Caribbean side of the island to 6,500 for San Juan’s home games in Hiram Bithorn Stadium, named for the former Cubs and White Sox pitcher of the 1940s who was the first native of Puerto Rico to play in the majors.
Sparse attendance during the regular season was one reason the championships were extended from a best-of-seven series to best-of-nine. Playoffs are when teams make their money.
What the fans lack in numbers, though, they more than make up in Latin fervor. And they do it without the gimmicks that are commonplace in major-league parks. San Juan, for example, doesn’t even bother to play music of any kind during its games. There are no instant replays. The only announcements are when players come to bat. And the scoreboard gives only the essentials: strikes, balls, score and lineups. No batting averages. no trivia.
The Santurce Cangrejeros, or Crabbers, are a tad more daring. They share Hiram Bithorn Stadium with the Senators. And when the Crabbers are the home team, they, at least, play music between innings and, occasionally, at key moments during the game.
Games between the Crabbers and Senators are classics. Imagine the Sox and Cubs sharing a ballpark and meeting each other in games that count. Throw in some salsa music, a sea of pina coladas and bring back Hector Villanueva and you’ve got an idea what it was like when Santurce upset San Juan in extra innings last week.
Grownups were fighting with kids for space to dance on the dugouts. Firecrackers were going off down the left-field line. And half the fans erupted into a cocky chorus of “whooo-ahhhh” and waved their hands toward the San Juan dugout when Ruben Sierra waltzed home with the winning run for Santurce in the bottom of the 11th.
“It’s a lot of fun, but this isn’t a Caribbean vacation for these players,” says Gamboa, who was just hired by the Cubs to help run spring training and serve as roving minor-league coordinator.
“These guys are here to win. This isn’t a developmental league. If a player can develop, that’s fine. But it’s really secondary.”
Hernandez agrees. He refused to sign with Mayaguez until he was sure owner Luis Ivan Mendez was serious about winning. When Hernandez saw his teammates included Cordero of the Expos, Pedro Munoz of the Twins and Cubs infielder Jose Hernandez, he decided to play.
“I haven’t seen this kind of enthusiasm since my first two years here (in 1987-88),” says Hernandez. “It’s great to see.”
The question, though, is will major-league fans love it when many of these same players finally return?
“It’s going to take a while,” admits Hernandez. “If the fans around the league are anywhere as knowledgeable as the fans in Chicago, we have a chance. They know what’s going on.
“Both sides have done some things wrong, and you’re going to lose some fans because of it. We just have to find a way to win them back.”
Try playing a game. It’s working pretty well in Puerto Rico.
