Abstract
This essay investigates the early stages of the Major League Baseball (MLB) pipeline by focusing on the Dominican academy system. Once an international player is signed to a professional contract, they report to the team’s academy in the Dominican Republic. All 30 teams have an academy located on the island, where they house, feed, train, and educate players on American culture. I argue that MLB maintains a neocolonial system by having a system of insufficient education, discrimination, and surveillance based on Haitian nationality, and by communicating the American dream to its prospects. MLB controls its prospects economically and culturally in these instances, which is strictly neocolonial. I analyze, with attention to internal discourse and reference to neocolonial literature, how MLB justifies and maintains this system, rhetorically.
At just 22 years of age, Juan Soto is one of the most complete and clutch hitters in Major League Baseball (MLB). Although hard-core baseball fans may have heard his name rumbling around MLB Network for a couple years by the start of the 2019 MLB season, the entire baseball community was able to see how special of a player he was during the postseason of that year. Down by two runs in the eighth inning of the National League Wild Card game, Soto hit a single to tie the game, and then ended up scoring the winning run to advance the Washington Nationals to the National League Division Series (NLDS). In the NLDS, he hit a home run off one from Dodgers Clayton Kershaw, arguably the best pitcher in the game, to tie up Game 5. His next time up, he was intentionally walked in the 10th inning, which led to the game-winning grand slam by Howie Kendrick. The Nationals ended up advancing to the World Series and, in Game 7, Soto went 2–3 with a walk, a two-run home run, and had an RBI single that led to the Washington Nationals winning their first ever World Series championship. None of his heroics would have been possible without MLB’s physical presence in the Dominican Republic, with each team operating an academy. Soto, a native of Santo Domingo, was signed as an international free agent by the Nationals in 2015 for a US$1.5 million signing bonus (Sanchez, 2015). Once he was signed, he reported to the Nationals’ academy in the Dominican Republic to begin his professional baseball career (Stephen, 2019).
Professional baseball in the United States is increasingly comprised of players from throughout the globe chasing one major goal: to play at the highest level possible and to reap the benefits of playing in the world’s premier baseball league. As of 2018, approximately two thirds of MLB players were from the United States, with the remaining one-third (259 players) being foreign-born players. The talent influx is increasing, currently at an all-time high. For instance, the Dominican Republic had 90 players on Opening Day rosters in 2019, the most of any one country apart from the United States, equating to roughly three Dominican players per team (Anzil, n.d.). Adrian Burgos, a history professor who studies U.S. and Latino sports history, places extra significance on Dominican players in MLB by claiming that “what makes these figures even more amazing is that Venezuela has three times the population of the Dominican Republic” (Ghosh, 2014, para. 18). MLB relies on Dominican players more than any other international country because baseball is more than just a game there; it is also an opportunity to escape one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere, where the average annual income is less than US$5,000 (Brewster, 2017). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook claims that 30.5% of the Dominican population falls beneath the poverty line, so many young players believe that baseball is the fastest and easiest way to abandon poverty (Sharp, 2019).
A globalized and multicultural entity, MLB is a transnational organization that provides an opportunity for both domestic and international players to financially succeed. While MLB is attempting to globalize the game, I argue that it is not a supranational organization because it does not control all of the leagues around the world. For instance, MLB does not own or operate professional leagues in Asia, including the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) league in Japan or the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO). MLB has a specific influence in Latin America that is the focus of this study. For the majority of Latino players who arrive in the United States, they must first attend an MLB teams’ Dominican academy, where MLB develops players by teaching them the skills needed to be successful in the United States.
The academies house and feed, and train and educate prospects on American culture. Some academies even offer prospects a high school education. However, the main goal is to produce major league caliber talent. To do so, each academy has one or sometimes two teams that compete with each other. The competition between academies is called the Dominican Summer League (DSL) and the best players will be promoted to play rookie ball in the United States (DSL, n.d.). Each MLB team has an operating academy in the Dominican Republic, so the MLB pipeline begins in the Dominican Republic and the country’s academies. In addition to developing their baseball skills, the academies also offer educational programs, including classes on English, leadership, etiquette, and American culture (Rojas, 2015).
This project is a postcolonial critique of MLB’s academy system that aims to reveal the problems of the system. Specifically, I focus on the insufficient education taught to prospects in the academies and how MLB conducts medical testing on prospects as a form of surveillance to protect its profitability, while also extending the research conducted by Alan Klein regarding the Dominican academy system from its inception in 1973. He has argued that the academies are inherently neocolonial by their acting as a colonial outpost, their education system, and how they communicate the American dream (Klein, 1989, 1991, 1995, 2014). This essay addresses these issues, but I take it a step further to see how MLB responds and justifies them. I also extend his work by discussing the prominence of surveillance in the academies, mainly toward prospects of Haitian descent.
As an undergraduate student in the summer of 2014, I interned with MLB in its Department of Education in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. For the duration of the summer, I went to different academies each day and observed the quality of education being delivered by MLB and whether it appeared to be effective. I witnessed how certain academies were superior to others and I experienced academies that were dilapidated. This experience motivated me to write on this topic as I observed inequities in the system that the casual sports fan may not be familiar with. This includes insufficient education, discrimination based on nationality, and inadequate living conditions for some of the prospects. My unique perspective on this topic allows me to view the academy system more critically because I interacted with players, coaches, and team employees, along with MLB officials, about the state of the academies and the prospects who enter them.
This article builds on the work of Alan Klein who critically examines the workings of the Dominican academy dating back to the first academy constructed in 1973. The academies are essentially the baseball counterpart of the colonial outpost, the physical embodiment overseas of the parent franchise. It operates more or less like the subsidiary of any other foreign company: it finds raw materials [talented athletes], refines them [trains the athletes], and ships abroad finished products [baseball players] (Klein, 1991, p. 42).
Baseball is one way in which the United States has extended its operations to the Dominican Republic, and it helps to modernize the country, where power spreads conquest through various social classes, while organizing its subordinates (Clevenger, 2017). The academies are modern facilities where MLB franchises house, educate, and train prospects, all the while spreading American ideologies and traditions. This includes information on the American banking system and teaching the prospects English to prepare them for a career in the United States. On the surface, it appears that the academies and the education within them help players to survive in a foreign country although Ross Atkins claims that education is in place mainly to teach the prospects how to learn, which will make them better players (Buescher & Ono, 1996; Baxter, 2006). Furthering economic imperialism on the island through baseball is portrayed as a form of altruism because MLB claims that its actions are helping prospects achieve the American dream, whereas their true interests are inherently self-serving.
Foreign talent is vital to MLB as foreign-born players are signed to much cheaper contracts than draft-eligible players from the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. For instance, the average signing bonus for a Dominican player is US$94,000, whereas the minimum signing bonus for a first-round player in the draft is more than US$2 million and the first overall pick is worth more than US$8 million (Callis, 2018; Ghosh, 2014). Because of this, MLB teams use the “boatload mentality” when working in the Dominican Republic. In 1996, the then Colorado Rockies vice president, Dick Balderson, said that with a US$100,000 investment, the club could sign four domestic prospects or 20 Dominican players (for an average as low as US$5,000 per player). There is a higher chance that at least one of the Dominican players would pan out as a major league player, as compared with the smaller group of U.S. prospects (Bretón & Villegas, 1999). Former New York Mets general manager, Steve Phillips, voiced a similar opinion by stating, “You can develop 30 to 45 players from the Dominican for what it costs to sign a second-round draft pick in the States” (Ghosh, 2014, para. 13). Adrian Burgos expands on this mass signing practice by saying, For the U.S. baseball clubs, signing and training Dominican boys generally offers little financial risk. These kids—most of whom are poor and often malnourished—are signed largely on their potential. With American-style coaching and nutrition, they are groomed to become good players, with a hope that a lucky few can make the big leagues, or at least the minors (Ghosh, 2014, para. 11).
Elk and Moreno (2018) sum up the importance of Latinos in MLB as follows: When clubs sign players in Latin America, they are able to skirt the league’s draft rules of minimum signing age, signing them as young as 16 without representation. Often, they get only a few thousand dollars signing bonus, and a minimum wage of only $1,100 a month to work for a mere five months a year; in contrast US-born top draft picks of comparable talent are signed for bonuses worth millions of dollars (para. 15).
Players train and practice between 50 and 75 hr a week, which equals roughly US$4 an hour (Miller, 2016). Therefore, MLB finds a way to not pay its employees proper wages because it is still higher than the average paying job in the Dominican Republic. This strategy is neocolonial as the players are controlled economically and do not push back against MLB.
MLB began trying to globalize the game early on by controlling its presence in Latin American countries. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke MLB’s color line as its first Black player since the late 1880s. Before this point, players of color from the United States and Latin America were forced to play in Caribbean baseball leagues, including both Cuba and Mexico. After Robinson joined the league, other players of color wanted MLB to be their league of choice. At this point, however, the upstart Mexican League tried to lure Black players from the Cuban and Negro Leagues because league president, Jorge Pasquel, had immense wealth, using which he could entice quality African American and Latino players, and even White American MLB players, to play in Mexico rather than in the United States. This league prevented MLB from having a monopoly over the Caribbean leagues, so MLB reacted by trying to put the Federal League out of business. One way MLB attempted to do this was to prevent its players from playing there. MLB commissioner, Happy Chandler, told players who accepted Mexican contracts to return to their MLB team or they would be suspended for 5 years, which he ended up honoring by suspending 18 players. Another way that Chandler demonstrated his power in Mexico was by insulting Pasquel and his league verbally, which further pushed the deterioration of the relationship between MLB and the Federal League. Eventually, the Federal League was losing money and stories from American players of the difficulty adjusting to live in Mexico came to the forefront, which helped to end the league in Mexico (Ruck, 2011). This example demonstrates how MLB has a history of trying to control Latin American Leagues and territories, a common characteristic of neocolonialism and how MLB has, and is still, attempting to establish nation-states in the Caribbean, where the players and culture align with the controlling country, mainly the Dominican Republic.
In an attempt to globalize the game and to sign cheap labor, MLB has a physical presence on the island with an academy for all 30 teams and even its international headquarters. The first academy was constructed for the Toronto Blue Jays under the influence of scout Epy Guerrero in 1977 (Sandoval, n.d.) and MLB then expanded its academy system to Venezuela in 1998. Beginning in 2010, the academies partnered with the DSL, where the academies played each other. In typical neocolonial fashion, the academies allowed teams to control the training of the young prospects while monitoring their lives off the field (Klein, 2006; Ruck, 2011). This control and surveillance of prospects is inherently neocolonial and it taps into an inexpensive and exploitable labor pipeline that takes advantage of cost savings relative to U.S. labor costs to drive up profits.
As with the case of the Dominican academies, Western perceptions have traveled to colonized countries, such that “modernizing” these countries are a fundamental action of postcolonialism. It has been asserted that “modernity’s ‘coloniality of power’ is the reproduction of the relations of power established through the systematic repression of Eurocentered imperial conquest through the imposition of the social classifications of race and gender in order to organize colonized world peoples” (Clevenger, 2017, p. 595). Sport, modernity and colonialism are sites “that might prove to be the consummate example of work in the [post-] postmodernist era’ in the sense of illuminating [but not decentering] the significance of sport with the social realms of global societies” (Bass, 2014, p. 172; Clevenger, 2017, p. 590). This is exemplified through the ways MLB operates mostly modern academies, where they are bringing American culture to the island through baseball.
It is useful to think of postcolonialism studies as imperialism or neo-imperialism as the phenomenon that originates in the metropolis, the process which leads to domination and control. Its result, or what happens in the colonies as a consequence of imperial domination, is colonialism or neo-colonialism. Thus, the imperial country is the “metropol” from which power flows, and the colony or neo-colony is the place which it penetrates and controls. Imperialism can function without formal colonies [as in United States imperialism today] but colonialism cannot (Loomba, 2007, pp. 11–12).
In terms of baseball, MLB holds power over Latino baseball players through the academy system. Essentially, colonization acts as a mechanism of control over a country and its people and the relationship in a settler-colonial country is characterized by domination (Billings & Black, 2018; Couthard, 2014). Baseball in the Dominican Republic is under direct influence from the United States and the relationship between MLB and the Dominican Republic is mainly imperial, while also having control tactics that resonate with neocolonialism.
As Loomba (2007) explains, postcolonial theory is concerned with the historical and cultural legacy of imperial domination in formerly colonized nations. Accordingly, this essay analyzes how MLB exercises forms of dominance over prospects in the MLB academy system that reflect the continuing aftermath of colonial control in the Dominican Republic. This system illustrates the operation of neocolonial power in sport by controlling the prospects both culturally and economically, while also allowing this control to be hidden in the education system taught at each academy. Overall, this is a Latino issue because all Latin American players, excluding Cubans because they must defect and make residency in a third country before signing as a free agent, and Puerto Ricans who are subject to the U.S. draft, sign with a team, and then report to their respective academy in the Dominican Republic. The focus of this article is specifically about the Dominican Republic because it is the only Latin American country where MLB has a physical presence on the island, with both the academies and their international headquarters located in Santo Domingo.
On the surface, it seems as if MLB is assisting prospects with the potential transition to play in the United States. However, comments from MLB officials demonstrate the true intentions that providing prospects with education is to control them neocolonially. I first detail in my analysis my experiences and observations in the Dominican academies. I then provide evidence of how MLB dominates and controls its Dominican prospects by holding up an insufficient education system as a sign of the league’s altruism, by subjecting prospects to forms of control (surveillance, medical testing) justified around suspicion of their foreign identity and by using the American dream as a form of enticement into the academy system for foreign-born prospects. This essay adds to present conversations about sport and neocolonialism by demonstrating how large entities regulate their players, especially when the players are geographically distant from the league itself.
Accordingly, I argue in this essay that MLB maintains the academy system as a means of neocolonial control over its international prospects in the Dominican Republic at a moment when foreign labor is critical to MLB’s profitability by controlling its prospects economically and culturally. More specifically, I analyze, with attention to internal discourse from MLB and reference to neocolonial literature, how MLB justifies and maintains this system, rhetorically.
Post/Neocolonialism and Sport
Postcolonialism
Postcolonial studies are “an interdisciplinary field of inquiry committed to theorizing the problematics of colonization and decolonization” (Shome & Hedge, 2002, p. 250). Postcolonialism is not only focused on colonialism, but also “why these conditions are what they are, and how they can be undone and redone” (Shome & Hedge, 2002, p. 250). Stuart Hall (1992) posits that postcolonial theory exists in tension with established institutional knowledge. It attempts to undo (and redo) the historical structures of knowledge production that are rooted in various histories and geographies of modernity. This means that the questions and problematics of colonialism that postcolonial scholarship concerns itself with emerge from larger social contexts—contemporary or past—of modernity (Shome & Hedge, 2002, p. 150).
Most importantly, postcolonial communication scholarship provides historical and international depth to studying and understanding cultural power as it extends beyond solely one nation. This project takes the arguments from these scholars and applies them to studying the MLB academy system in the Dominican Republic as most of the academies are modern and are operated by an entity in the United States. This is an example of modern-day colonialism that is enacted through sport.
Shome (1996) argues that postcolonialism “primarily challenges the colonizing and imperialistic tendencies manifest in discursive practices of ‘first world’ countries in their constructions and representations of the subjects of ‘third world’ countries and/or racially oppressed peoples of the world” (p. 42). This is applicable to the Dominican academies because a first world country is dominating a third world country, essentially colonizing the academy system.
After colonialism occurs, the changing of the subordinate country’s culture is known as neocolonialism. Neocolonialism includes the “rationalizations of colonialism that involve the symbolic, as both a precursor and extension of the material realm” (Billings & Black, 2018, p. 37; Black, 2012, p. 23; Sibley, 1997). Between 1870 and 1900, Americans became the most powerful international influence in the Dominican Republic because they invested heavily in the sugar industry. The United States also invaded the country in the early 20th century, further employing their economic imperialism on the Dominican Republic. Neocolonialism also “employs contemporary ideological and economic strategies to make racism, genocide, sexism, nationalism, and inequitable capital distribution appear necessary” (Buescher & Ono, 1996, p. 255). For the colonizers to conquer people and ideologies, in addition to territory, the colonists must do so by using discursive means to colonize the local people (Lang, 2015; Shome, 1996). Susan Sibley (1997) agrees with this assertion, as she argues that neocolonialism is a “control of land or political organization . . . is less important than power over conscious or consumption” (Billings & Black, 2018, p. 37; Sibley, 1997, p. 37). Furthermore, Stuckey and Murphy (2001) posit that discourse represents the power of neocolonialism in and of itself, and the power is typically hidden and invisible in a taken for granted culture (Billings & Black, 2018). Neocolonialism also “pretends to offer a kinder version of present global economics than past colonialism; hence, its presence may at times be quite subtle” (Buescher & Ono, 1996, p. 255). Education within the academy system is both an example of the MLB using discursive means to conquer its prospects by spreading American ideologies and norms to its players while also making MLB’s efforts seem like a “kinder version” of domination that characterizes neocolonialism. The education received by the players in the academy system benefits MLB first and foremost as the players will be taught to learn, which will help them on the baseball diamond. Thus, these actions are self-serving by MLB that further illustrates its neocolonial dominance and presence in the Dominican Republic, where its true intentions are not easily seen.
MLB’s neocolonialist traditions in the Dominican Republic can be portrayed as altruism because MLB is giving prospects a chance to pursue the American dream. Sugarball, by Alan Klein (1991), highlights this enticement by positing as follows: For people in a nation subject to neocolonialism, the cultural institutions of a country as powerful and wealthy as the United States hold a special allure, the promise to the colonized of an escape from their dependent status. The colonized consume a wide range of the products of the colonizers; they subscribe to the ideology of upward mobility and have the illusion that they can change their status. Thus, culture can promote domination by offering the promise of empowerment without change. The desire for the culture and institutions of the foreign elite [in this case the American elite] rests on two pillars of the social psychology of the dominated: veneration for the foreigner [colonizer, ruling elite, or multinational corporation] and cultural self-loathing, or what Fanon referred to as colonial self-hatred. Of course the willingness of a colonized and subordinate class to take on the ideology and culture of the ruling class leads to the impoverishment of their own culture (p. 106).
Therefore, MLB may not see anything wrong with their exploitation practices because of the slim chances that Latino players will succeed in professional baseball.
Baseball’s Background in the Caribbean and the Academy System
The Dominican-to-MLB pipeline is an important representation of how the American dream of upward mobility and opportunities for all who seek them and American culture have influenced baseball in the Dominican Republic. The United States spreads baseball to the Caribbean and Latin America in a variety of ways. First, Nemisio Guilló, a Cuban student studying at Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL, returned to Cuba in 1864 after graduation with a bat and ball from his playing days in the United States. This baseball equipment was considered “the first to be seen in Cuba” (Burgos, 2007, p. 20). Two years later, a group of American sailors stationed their ship in Havana and invited a few local Cubans to play in a game with them. A baseball diamond was created near the harbor, and games with Cubans became commonplace. Baseball became a popular sport for Cubans after these events, and Cuba helped to spread the game to other countries in the Caribbean, especially the Dominican Republic. The Ten Years’ War (1868–1878), in which Cuba fought for independence against Spain, led many Cubans to flee brutality. Many Cubans settled in the Dominican Republic, where they brought baseball with them and became beloved by Dominicans (Regalado, 1998). Regardless of how baseball was spread, Latinos have developed a baseball culture of their own that is unique from the American baseball tradition.
Today, the academies act as an MLB team’s Dominican headquarters, where they sign and develop players in hopes that some will be good enough to get promoted to play in the United States. The academies are also the first step to the minor leagues and are established solely for international players. Puerto Rico and Cuba are the only exceptions to this rule. Puerto Ricans are selected in the MLB draft because Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, so they must follow the rules that apply to draft-eligible American players (Academies, n.d.). Cuba is also exempt from this because, until 2018, Cubans must have defected to then make residency in a country other than the United States, and then be eligible to be signed by an MLB team. Many current MLB players, including Yasiel Puig and Aroldis Chapman, faced exploitation and trafficking by criminal organizations during their defection in exchange for large sums of money. More recently, MLB and the sport’s governing body in Cuba have reached an agreement where defections are no longer the only way to play in the United States. Under this agreement, players must be 25 years of age and have played professionally in Cuba for six years (Li & Murray, 2018)
Starting July 2 each year in the Dominican Republic, 16-year-olds are eligible to sign contracts with MLB teams, but the baseball training begins at much younger ages, and education becomes irrelevant because prospective players abandon formal education to focus solely on baseball by the time they are young teenagers. The young Dominican players are found by buscónes, which comes from the Spanish word buscar, which means “to search” or “to look for.” Essentially, buscónes are scouts who find and sign boys starting at age 13 years to train and live with them, with the goal of getting the young player signed to an MLB contract. In the Dominican Republic, there are more than a 1,000 buscónes who hope to get a player signed in exchange for a percentage of his signing bonus. They have been criticized for exploiting players and for acting more like “hustlers or surrogate fathers,” as they sometimes provide steroids, so the player can perform better to sign for more money. However, Klein refers to the criticism of buscónes from an American perspective as “progressive ethnocentrism.” He suggests that instead of criticizing the few who are unethical, we should focus on how they function locally, where they send players out of poverty. The relationship between the buscónes and the players is mutual, so often they are wrongfully criticized for exploiting players (Klein, 2008). As roughly 25% of children in the Dominican Republic have completed the eighth grade, a vast majority spend their time playing baseball and trying to get signed by using a buscóne (Klein, 2008). Education typically is not a priority for many young Dominicans as the dropout rate for Dominicans is the highest in Latin America where roughly 60% of children attend high school, and 80% of Dominicans do not have a high school diploma (Klein, 2014; McCullough, n.d.). These numbers may not be directly tied to baseball’s importance on the island, but it could be a contributing factor.
Once international players are signed by an MLB team, they immediately report to the team’s academy to begin their professional baseball career. If they perform well in the academies, they will then get promoted to rookie ball in the United States to continue their journey in the pipeline. From there, they can get called up to play in Low A, High A, AA, AAA, and then MLB if they are good enough. Even if players never make it to play in the United States at any level, the money they make as prospects is still life-changing. Adrian Burgos claims that the players “can use that money to buy his family a new home, a car, or even start a new business” (Ghosh, 2014, para. 14). Klein (1991) argues that even Latino players who fail to reach the major leagues and play instead in American minor league cities are considered financially successful, and those who remain in the baseball academies for two years and do not play in North America at all still earn more money than they would in a decade on the streets or in the cane field (p. 58–59).
If a player does reach the major leagues, the average salary significantly exceeds the average in the Dominican Republic. To put this into perspective, the average MLB player makes 660 times more annually than a middle-class job would pay in the Dominican Republic (Ghosh, 2014). However, the problem with relying on this type of work is that only a small percentage actually achieve stardom as only 2% to 5% of the players signed to professional contracts and who play in the academies make it to the MLB and only 25% of players are promoted to play in Single-A ball (Bautista, 2015; Dale, 2017; Lagesse, 2016).
As a lack of education to pursue baseball is an issue, many of the MLB academies offer education and, in some cases, they offer the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. However, Hanlon (2013) argues that the education in the academies is “useless for most Dominican children,” and is inherently self-serving for MLB because the few that do make it to MLB stardom are better prepared to adapt and succeed under the MLB spotlight. On the other hand, the players that do not make it to the United States are left without the necessary life skills to survive in life after baseball (p. 242).
As the statistics are not promising for Dominican players to make a viable career playing baseball, the probability of maintaining a professional baseball career for Latino players is slim. MLB teams acknowledge this issue and the academies are offering educational programs to its players. There are things that Westerners take for granted, which young Dominican boys do not even know exist. For instance, opening a checking account is critical for prospects who may get paid large sums of money. As Charles Farrell claims, “These are 16-year-olds who potentially are going to receive millions of dollars, and the kid doesn’t even know how to open a bank account” (Gordon, 2013, para. 2). For some academies, the education initiative is simple, only good enough for the prospects to survive in the United States. Other academies are offering high school diplomas for their players so they have something to fall back on in the likely case they are out of baseball at an early age. With a higher level of education, it was assumed that they could better understand instructions from coaches, while also setting up players for a life after baseball. For the New York Mets, baseball activities last every day until 4:00 p.m., followed by 3 hr of classes (Vorkunov, 2016). The Pittsburgh Pirates also offer a program where the prospects have the opportunity to graduate from high school while in the academy. As of 2015, the Pirates have awarded 45 players with a high school diploma (McCullough, n.d.). In the upcoming years, MLB expects more teams to instill educational initiatives in their academies.
Haitian Discrimination and Participation in MLB
Haiti has historically been a country that is unlike any in the Caribbean. In 1804, Haiti broke from France, and became a Black, French, and Creole speaking nation situated between American and European powers in a Spanish-speaking region (Khalid, 2016). As the country is culturally distinctive, Haitians have been labeled as outcasts. In the Dominican Republic, Haitians are an oppressed group and there is a national stigma against them. Haitians derive mostly from African slaves, whereas lighter skinned Dominicans come from a colonial European lineage, which is seen as more prestigious. Rafael Trujillo, the former Dominican dictator, even used makeup to whiten his face and he wanted to whiten the country as well. The oppression against Haitians in the Dominican Republic began as early as 1937 when Trujillo ordered the murder of approximately 20,000 Haitians and Haitian Dominicans near the Haiti–Dominican Republic border (Schoenfeld, 2017). This cast a negative light on Haitians living in or near the Dominican Republic for years. A 2012 census on migrants found that roughly 460,000 Haitian immigrants lived in the Dominican Republic, and 61% were undocumented (Castillo, 2016). Oftentimes Haitians are so poor that they are born without a birth certificate and the only way they can obtain their documents is to travel to Haiti, a country they are likely to have never been to before (Board, 2013). This marginalization has created a hostile environment for Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, who continue to struggle against a long history of hatred, racism, and discrimination.
Dominican players are also subject to control by MLB that is unique solely to them and not players from the United States. In the Dominican Republic, age and identity fraud is commonplace because those older than 16 years of age receive much smaller signing bonuses (Dorsey, 2015). In addition, there is discrimination against Dominicans of Haitian origin because they are often too poor to have been born in a hospital and to hold a birth certificate. Therefore, if they are vocal about their Haitian identity, they may not get an opportunity to get signed due to their nationality (Davis, 2017). This is part of the reason why MLB established a Department of Investigation at their international headquarters in Santo Domingo. Due to concerns about fraud, Dominican players are subject to DNA tests, bone scans, and a search of their school records to confirm their true identity in regard to age, nationality, and name. This form of external control is specific to Dominican players, which is a form of surveillance of MLB’s neocolonialist subjects, where the prospects are dominated and controlled economically and culturally.
Neocolonial Logics of Contemporary Baseball
Surveillance and control of Dominican prospects by MLB is commonplace in the Dominican Republic academy system. According to Kanfer (1979), “Effective external control can operate only when surveillance is constant” (p. 233) and MLB incorporates control and surveillance into its practices in the Dominican Republic by conducting medical and DNA tests on its prospects, specifically those of Haitian origin. Foucault (1977) determines that “surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration” (p. 196), and MLB fingerprints its prospects when they enter the academies to monitor them. While the academies give international players a chance to play baseball professionally and better their lives, many issues are associated with the academy system. MLB justifies their neocolonial system by claiming that their practices in the Dominican Republic are altruistic, where MLB’s intent is to help the players. MLB also used the American dream as a form of enticement. This covers up insufficient education programs and warrants fingerprinting and other medical tests as forms of surveillance over prospects. These are all demonstrations of external control used by MLB to monitor its players through neocolonialist practices. Through this extensive control, the Dominican academy system is dominated by MLB, like an empire over a colony. Through a neocolonialism lens, this study will help shed light on how MLB justifies the academy system in which players are exploited to benefit MLB and its clubs.
Analysis
In the summer of 2014, I interned with MLB’s Department of Education based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. There were many problematic things that I noticed during my time there, starting with the quality of the academies themselves. Some academies, like the ones run by the Pittsburgh Pirates and Colorado Rockies, resembled resorts rather than large baseball dormitories. These academies had brand new facilities and areas for ping pong and other games. On the contrary, there were still a few original academies operating in an area known as Baseball City. These academies are extremely old and run-down, with only one room for all the prospects to sleep in. The worst academy I visited was the Miami Marlins. The living conditions were extremely bad and the cafeteria would have failed all U.S. health standards. I saw rats, flies, and other types of bugs there. There were, and still are, stark contrasts between the living conditions in certain academies.
I also saw differences in education within the academies. For example, the Pirates, Rockies, Toronto Blue Jays, and Houston Astros all provided good education and staffed well-trained instructors. These teams offered high school diplomas to prospects who wished to pursue a formal education and also taught them how to thrive in the United States. They taught banking, English, and even topics such as sex education. The Blue Jays taught the prospects about the cities in the pipeline where minor league affiliates are located, such as Vancouver, including ways to save money when playing there. Topics like this are useful to the players; however, they were taught solely in English. I remember asking my supervisor about why the prospects were not taught in Spanish and she said that MLB wants them to be scared about not learning English. If the lessons were taught in English, then the players would have an investment in learning the language.
Although the education that the academies deliver is potentially useful, it is not beneficial if the prospects do not understand the content. The imposition of English-language learning as a fear-based motivation for success is one of the more subtle forms of neocolonial control at the academies. I also saw extremely insufficient education practices in the academies, especially at the more run-down academies like those run by the Marlins, Chicago White Sox, and the Atlanta Braves. The education at these academies was ineffective. I observed them on multiple occasions, for example, playing “Simon says” to learn the words for different parts of the body. I also sat in on an English class for the Braves and the teacher was a coach who did not speak English. He showed the prospects a documentary about Washington, D.C. that was from the early 1990s, and the players appeared uninterested throughout the film. Some courses were also taught at night, when prospects were tired and disengaged after a full day of working out and practicing.
Under neocolonial systems, subordinate countries refine and ship products to dominating countries in an inequitable but reciprocal relationship. Accordingly, the Dominican Republic’s baseball system is completely dependent on the United States to export talent. In turn, MLB is reliant on Latin American players (who themselves need the opportunities provided by MLB to escape poverty). There are many issues that arise in this relationship, such as education as a control mechanism, DNA testing as a form of surveillance, and the American dream as enticement to enter into the academy system. The academy system is structurally neocolonial and there have been statements made by MLB and team executives, both explicitly and implicitly, that represent U.S. domination in the Dominican Republic.
Insufficient Education
The academies are critical to the success of the prospects not only to hone their baseball skills, but also for education. MLB has a section for “academies” on its website, where it suggests that the main focus is not only to prepare the players for professional careers, but also have education in place to help them adjust to life as a professional baseball player in the United States (Academies, n.d.). Most players do not have higher than a sixth-grade education, so educating prospects through the academy system can, in fact, benefit them on the baseball field and also when they are cut and their baseball careers are over. For example, the New York Mets spend up to 12 hr a week in the classroom, and the players have the opportunity to get a high school diploma, even if they are released from their contract. As prospects in the academies range in age from 16 to 18 years, they must learn cultural customs that are practiced in the United States, along with basic knowledge of English. The academy’s main goal is to produce MLB talent, but it also provides education for those who will not play baseball as a career. However, most academies do not provide sufficient education. Hanlon (2013) concludes that Baseball is a lifestyle at MLB academies. A typical day starts with breakfast at 6 a.m., followed by fielding and hitting practice, games against other academies, lunch, a workout in the gym, then more hitting practice in the batting cage, dinner, English classes, and a 10 o’clock curfew (p. 241).
This schedule is not conducive to learning and retaining information. Although education is in place in the academies, it does not often benefit the players in a meaningful way.
Klein (2014) claims there are two goals of the academies. The main goal is to produce major league talent and the academies are designed to help a player adapt to the life of an MLB player, which is why some of the newer academies are extremely lavish. To help them adapt to U.S. culture, there is an educational curriculum that the prospects go through. Prospects are taught to possess a level of cultural and psychological awareness that will prepare them for the United States. Academies teach English and make sure the players learn punctuality to meet American workplace expectations as they are used to “island time” (Klein, 2014). Classes also include dinner etiquette, grocery shopping, and banking. Education like this helps to prevent cross-cultural incidents, including a story from 2005 where a group of Cardinal minor leaguers were consistently late to team events because they would not get changed in their hotel room beneath the “security cameras” that were smoke detectors (Baxter, 2006). This incident is an example of the extreme contrast between cultures and education in the academies is intended to alleviate situations like this.
In 2005, the Cleveland Indians had the idea that language acquisition for Dominican rookies would advance their education, while helping them to become more successful players who could speak English in the clubhouse and on the field (Klein, 2014). Ross Atkins, the former Director of Latin American Operations for the Cleveland Indians, and current general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, claimed in 2006 that It’s a nice byproduct that we graduate Dominicans from high school, but our focus is to make more complete baseball players. Their ability to learn is crucial in their development as a baseball player. And a secondary benefit is that they have something in life beyond baseball should baseball not work out (Baxter, 2006, para. 13).
Rafael Perez, Director of Dominican Operations for MLB, echoed this same claim by saying, “Critical thinking is the essence to any athlete. You have to have the ability to make decisions in the split of a second” (Dale, 2017, para. 15). Perez justifies this education by saying that critical thinking is important to all athletes and Dominican players are no different. This mentality demonstrates that MLB’s true goal is to not help prospects get acclimated to U.S. culture, but rather to control the players and their development. MLB also acknowledges that education teaches one to learn, by stating, “First, MLB-DR and Club representatives endeavored to be proactive in sparking prospects’ interest to learn by using methods that actively engage the players, showing them how to learn and increasing their self-confidence and self-esteem” (Education Initiative, n.d., para. 5). MLB confronts its controlling practices within a statement of altruism as the education system is implied to benefit the players, not MLB. Perez also said, “Our main priority is to ensure that all Dominican players are not only prepared for life on-field, but also they are prepared for life after baseball” (Education Initiative, n.d., para. 7).
Medical Testing and Discrimination
MLB founded a Department of Investigations in the Dominican Republic in 2008. According to the former MLB commissioner, Allan “Bud” Selig, the role of this department is to “protect the integrity of our sport” (Holden, 2018, para. 5). Its roles additionally include investigating allegations related to performance-enhancing substances, gambling, domestic violence, off-field misconduct, and other violations of baseball rules and policies. This department also conducts witness interviews throughout the United States and internationally to help solves these issues. They write detailed investigative reports, interview summaries, and referrals related to significant investigations (Holden, 2018). However, there is no acknowledgment of performing DNA tests or bone scans to confirm suspected players’ identities. When I interned with MLB, the Department of Investigations was right next to the Department of Education, where I spent most mornings before going to the academies in the afternoon. I saw which players investigators were interviewing and almost all of them were Haitians suspected of age fraud. I recall countless interrogations of the suspected players and their families, and I do not remember MLB investigating players for anything other than age and identity fraud. Although MLB claims it investigates gambling, domestic violence, and other violations, their main goal is to investigate nationality-based suspicions about age and identity. This is never mentioned anywhere in MLB’s public statements about the academies.
It has been established that there is age and identity fraud in the Dominican Republic, and MLB performs medical tests, including fingerprinting and bone scans, to determine age. Here MLB exercises control by aligning culturally reinforced suspicions around identity fraud with the league’s protection of its own business interests, a neocolonial exercise of power that makes racially targeted suspicion seem necessary, and that is made possible by relations between the United States and the Dominican Republic. It is illegal for companies based in the United States to ask an employee, potential employee, or family of employees for a sample of their DNA. However, there is no law that applies to a U.S.-based company performing DNA tests abroad or to those who are not citizens of the United States (Schwarz, 2009). William C. Thompson, a professor of Criminology at University of California (UC) Irvine, described MLB’s genetic testing as “troubling because it kind of gives employers a chance to look into the future and to use that to discriminate against people” (Schwarz, 2009, para. 18). MLB commented publicly about this issue in 2009 and stated that DNA tests are performed “in very rare instances and only on a consensual basis to deal with the identity fraud problem that the league faces in that country” (Schmidt & Schwarz, 2009, para. 5). In the same article, MLB declined to comment on how many players have been tested, what the results were, and where the information was stored (Schmidt & Schwarz, 2009). MLB also required the players to pay for their DNA tests and only reimbursed them if they were telling the truth about their identities (Schmidt & Schwarz, 2009).
Medical testing typically discriminates against darker skinned Haitians, which Thompson argued is related to its genetic focus. Miguel Sanó, the only identifiable Haitian Dominican player in MLB, was subject to this discrimination. He was born Miguel Ángel Jean in San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic to a poor Haitian family. His mother’s last name is Jean and his father’s last name is Aponte. When Sanó was a child, his parents split, and changed his last name to Sanó. He claims this was out of respect of the Dominican Republic and not to help with his baseball career. He was such a good baseball player as a young teenager in the Dominican Republic that he was estimated to sign for approximately US$5 million. However, the birth documents that he submitted to MLB at the time of his signing were deemed to be fraudulent because MLB did not trust them. MLB assumed that he was older than 16 years of age, the age Sanó claimed to be, and they also investigated the identities of his parents (Dorsey, 2015; Schoenfeld, 2017). MLB then required him to be fingerprinted and bone density testing was conducted to determine his true age (Schoenfeld, 2017). MLB also traced back his school records as a part of the investigation (Wetmore, 2015). The entire process lasted 3 months and the results came back inconclusive. “It was very difficult,” said Sanó about the process. “They wouldn’t tell me anything about the investigation. I was in the dark” (Dorsey, 2015, para. 6). Most MLB teams wanted the services of Sanó, but “rather than have all 30 teams do the testing, Major League Baseball stepped in and did the testing,” claimed the then Minnesota Twins general manager (Dorsey, 2015, para. 9). Although MLB claims that this testing in consensual, it does not appear that Sanó had a choice if he wanted to sign a professional contract. Although the investigation did not find him to be older than claimed or someone other than himself, it cost him roughly US$2 million in his signing bonus. He ended up signing with the Twins for US$3.15 million in 2009 (Dorsey, 2015).
Aside from Sanó, the only other known professional baseball player of Haitian origin is Estevan Florial, a highly touted outfield in the New York Yankees organization. There are conflicting reports for where he was born. It has been reported that he was born in Haiti to a Haitian mother and a Dominican father, who abandoned the family soon after his birth (Sanchez, 2017; Sherman, 2016). However, another article claims that he was born in his Dominican Republic home to a Haitian mother (Schwartz, 2018). Regardless, Florial was from a poor family and did not have a birth certificate needed to enroll in school once his mother moved them to the Dominican Republic soon after Florial was born. Instead of providing an official document to the school, Florial took the identity of someone named Haniel d’Oleo, which is the name he went by his entire childhood and into his tryout with MLB teams. The New York Yankees viewed d’Oleo as one of the top international prospects in the 2014 signing period, where he drew comparisons with players who received signing bonuses between US$2 million and US$3 million. d’Oleo showed up at the Yankees’ complex to workout one day and learned that he was suspended by MLB for a full year due to inconsistencies in the paperwork that he submitted to MLB. He never had any issues with his paperwork up to that point, but MLB found discrepancies in the paperwork submitted. In the time that he was suspended from all MLB activities, his mother traveled to Haiti to get his formal paperwork as Estevan Florial for resubmission to the MLB executives. When he was eligible to return a year later, he ended up signing with the Yankees, the club that pursued his services from the time he was eligible at 16 years, for US$200,000, roughly one tenth of what he would have received if his paperwork was the legitimate ones from Haiti. He claimed that he never intended to deceive MLB; he just did not have another option (Sanchez, 2017; Sherman, 2016). Florial’s example demonstrates the significant ramifications fraudulent documents have on the players, while also reinforcing the Haitian discrimination and issues within MLB in the Dominican Republic.
The examples of Sanó and Florial indicate a larger social issue in the Dominican Republic, where Haitians are marginalized and the government is finding ways to disassociate themselves from Haitians. In 2010, the Dominican Republic rewrote its Constitution to revoke citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. The changes stipulate that regardless of where one was born in the Dominican Republic, only children born to Dominican parents are eligible for citizenship, leaving approximately 200,000 people stateless, most of them Haitian. Therefore, this law can further impact players of Haitian descent who were born into the Dominican Republic because they will be unable to locate their birth certificates and will find it extremely difficult if they have to travel to Haiti to acquire them.
MLB does admit that there is discrimination within the Dominican baseball system. Sandy Alderson, former general manager of the New York Mets and vice president of MLB, claims, “Long before you get to Major League Baseball, there’s a selection process that discriminates against Haitians” (Schoenfeld, 2017, para. 13). This is mainly in reference to the buscónes and how Haitians are restricted from entering the pipeline. However, the medical testing that Sanó had to endure is also another example of this. Alderson was responsible for cleaning up the broken Dominican baseball system. He was asked by a Sports Illustrated reporter in 2010 about the role fingerprinting played in investigations surrounding fraud. He responded by saying, If it [fingerprinting] is used, it will only be used on players as part of a registration process prior to entering a club academy so that they we can make sure those players aren’t being taken advantage of by any particular club . . . There’s absolutely no intention whatsoever to use fingerprinting for any other purpose including youth baseball (Segura, 2010, para. 10).
This is not only a lie, but it is also a justification for fingerprinting international talent. In a separate interview with the New York Times, Alderson changed his position by claiming that “Age and identity continues to be a major issue, and it’s important to address it before the signing process begins, and the fingerprinting technology will help us do that and lock in their identities” (Schmidt, 2010b, Dominican Prospects, para. 3). He then claimed that fingerprint scanning machines would be installed at all team facilities to track the amount of time unsigned prospects were spending at academies and showcases prior to the June 2 signing day. He again provided a different reason for fingerprinting: It will allow [MLB] to track players and make sure they are not spending more than 30 days with a team before they sign. We will now know that a player needs to come out of that academy as the rules state, so other teams can see him. Ultimately, it will help the player and help their marketing of themselves to other teams (Schmidt, 2010b, Dominican Prospects, para. 12).
Alderson not only justifies fingerprinting, but he also is claiming altruism, as fingerprinting is intended to help the player, rather than MLB. Alderson finishes by saying as follows: We have a significant problem here. We have to figure out what is appropriate legally, and we want to be recognized as a good corporate citizen, and we want a positive reputation. Does something like DNA testing undermine that? It very well might (Schmidt, 2010a, Baseball Emissary, para. 16).
The complete domination by MLB’s surveillance practices demonstrates neocolonial practices as the prospects face consistent control to be refined and shipped to the United States. Discrimination is also commonplace and MLB justifies its practices of racism by making its actions seem necessary.
American Dream as Enticement
MLB also uses the American dream as a form of enticement for prospects to enter the pipeline. According to Elias (2016), the American dream depicts the United States as a land of abundant opportunity where “sufficient dedication and hard work guarantees individual mobility and success,” while also promising “wealth and riches for all who energetically seek them, regardless of one’s class, gender, religion, and ethnicity” (p. 5). As Elias (2016) argues, “The American dream makes the country special: it nourishes the American people, it seduces foreigners to our shores, and it spreads the American way far beyond our own borders” (p. 5). Serazio (2019) also argues that the American dream feels validated when a sports superstar comes from a lower-class background, regardless of class or race. Thus, the American dream in sport is not only for international players looking for a better life in the United States, but also it does resonate with this population. MLB understands this idea and uses it to communicate to prospects who wish for better fortunes in the United States.
Baseball embodies the American dream because Dominicans are pursuing the sport to escape poverty in the Dominican Republic. MLB has a physical presence on the island with the academies, so the American dream seems to be more achievable and proximate for prospects. Dominican players see success stories of friends and relatives who sign a professional contract, so they feel as if playing professional baseball is a realistic goal (Klein, 1989). MLB teams tell kids that they can get rich playing baseball and use baseball as an avenue to escape poverty. Charles Farrell claims that MLB’s monetary enticements have “kids dropping out of school at 13 or 14 to prepare themselves for baseball,” although 98% of prospects will have no education or job prospects by the time they are aged 19 or 21 years (Lagesse, 2016, para. 18). This economic control by MLB demonstrates how its actions are inherently neocolonial.
MLB justifies the academy system as a way to chase the American dream. The Arizona Diamondbacks’ vice president of international operations, Junior Noboa, claims, “Baseball is like an escape. It’s the goal for the children that want a better future for them and their families. This is why there is much passion in baseball” (Payne, 2016, para. 2). The Diamondbacks’ coordinator of Latin American operations, Chuy Mendoza, also argues that the academies are a better situation for players than being back at home because “they come here and are able to eat better, they get education, and they sleep better. They are in a better place” (Payne, 2016, para. 10). Noboa justifies the academy system around education, saying that “when these Latinos go and play in their first year in the United States, they will know their agents and coaches that will help them lots” (Payne, 2016, para. 14). The idea of a better future is powerful in a nation where poverty is dominant.
Butterworth (2010) claims that the American dream “is a narrative that instructs citizens about the American ‘way of life’ and lures foreigners with its promises of a better future” (p. 54). In the baseball pipeline, the American dream is sold to prospects as a way of getting them signed. For example, the phrase “te venden un sueño,” or they sell you a dream, has been used when describing how Cuban players are convinced to sign with a team (Eden, 2017). Although my focus is on the Dominican Republic, the concept of selling the American dream remains similar, as MLB can invest cheaply in its foreign prospects.
Juffer (2002) suggests that media plays a role in the reason Dominicans pursue baseball, as “Baseball perpetuates the illusion of upward mobility and suggests to U.S. viewers that players can transcend the poverty of Latin America if they only work hard enough, at which point they are granted access to the American dream” (p. 347). Although young Dominican athletes are told that it is possible to reach stardom and escape poverty in the United States, this is not completely realistic as the overwhelming majority of all international players who sign a professional contract fail to reach MLB (Gregory, 2010; Juffer, 2002). Although it is unlikely that every player signed will play in the major leagues, seeing Dominican stars play on television helps to sell the American dream to Dominican players as an enticement to enter the pipeline. This further demonstrates neocolonialism because the American dream is a dominant ideology communicated by MLB as a control mechanism to encourage young prospects to enter into the academy system, so they can be transformed into prospects with enough talent to be sent to the United States. The American dream is also reinforced by the physical presence of the academies on the island as it makes the goal of playing professionally seem more obtainable. Controlling of subordinates is a common theme of neocolonialism and MLB demonstrates this by communicating the American dream.
Conclusion
This article addresses key issues regarding MLB’s imperial and neocolonial actions in the Dominican Republic, specifically with the education offered to prospects and the discrimination toward players of Haitian descent. Whereas the academies have been studied through a critical lens previously, with works specifically from Alan Klein and Rob Ruck, Haitian discrimination has not. This is not a well-known issue from people on the outside looking in. I am fortunate for my time spent in the MLB offices in Santo Domingo and in the academies. Without this experience, I would not have been able to bring this issue to light. Although I only mention two examples of Haitian Dominican players in this article, there are countless others who have attempted their way through the pipeline and have been stopped, and, in turn, subjected to medical testing and discrimination. I am certain there are additional current MLB and minor league players who are of Haitian ancestry but are afraid to speak up on the issue. The dearth of additional stories on Haitian Dominicans in professional baseball is frightening because it shows the reality of Haitian discrimination.
This article’s focus is on MLB and its actions in the Dominican Republic. However, there are current effort to globalize the game that was not discussed in this article because it merits its own article. Specifically, in recent years, MLB is trying to globalize the game by hosting games outside of the United States, including Japan, Australia, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. There are also areas of the world where we are seeing a rise of baseball and players trying to play professionally in the United States. South Africa and Ukraine are just a few countries where baseball is starting to see traction (see Alan Klein’s Growing the Game). MLB has more of a presence in South Africa. MLB holds an annual training camp in South Africa and they send scouts to look for potential players to sign (York, 2017). Gift Ngoepe was the first South African to play in the MLB, making his debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2017. This can show that MLB teams are also starting to have more players on rosters from Australia, including star reliever for the Oakland Athletics, Liam Hendricks. Researching MLB globalization efforts outside of Latin America would be worthy of a future study. For now, this study contributes to critical cultural sport literature by rhetorically analyzing MLB’s justifications of a broken academy system in the Dominican Republic. There we witness insufficient education and medical testing by trying to make the Dominican Republic operate under the sway of the U.S. nation-state. Controlling prospects’ whereabouts, mind-sets, and education is foundationally neocolonial, while MLB’s presence on the island exemplifies economic imperialism by trying to make the Dominican Republic a U.S. nation-state. The examples of Sanó and Florial demonstrate how MLB is attempting to further marginalize players of Haitian descent, which aligns with the larger Dominican culture of discrimination. Understanding these issues in the academies should help us view Latino players for more than what they can bring to a franchise and the revenue that they create.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
