Awhile back I posted a comment at ROS regarding their plans to produce a show on the “Latinization of Baseball.” Good, idea, but it was backwards. Baseball hasn’t become latinized, Latin Baseball has become infected with MLB:
Regarding the “latinization of baseball” show idea, I think we should stay away from the “how Latin players impact the game” line of thinking that dominated the Japanese Baseball show.
When I’ve gotten into discussions about bringing baseball to lesser communities in the US (Portland OR or Las Vegas), I’ve often counter argued that some Latin markets deserve consideration (San Juan PR or Monterrey MX). My thought was that MLB should expand into Latin America. But, that assumption had to do with a different view of Latin baseball than the one I hold today.
I thought Latin baseball leagues were organized separately from MLB, but I’ve come to realize slowly that practically every Latin league of note, from the Liga Mexicana de Beisbo, to the Venezuelan Summer League, and even the Caribbean Series are infected one way or another with MLB.
This may sound insanely naive, but its almost as if MLB maintains relationships with Latin leagues in order to ensure a cheap supply of talent. I’m sure there is a “How Soccer Explains the World” type parallel going on here.
It might be worth looking at Jorge Pasquel as a starting point.
Now, with the possibility of the Cuban embargo being lifted, MLB is laying plans for the mining of Cuban talent:
Baseball is contemplating a strategy for teams to sign Cuban players in an effort to create an orderly system for acquiring talent from the island, according to three baseball officials and a scholar who was briefed on the plans.
“There may not be any significant changes with our relationship with Cuba in the near term, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about these things,” Joe Garagiola Jr., the senior vice president for baseball operations, said in a telephone interview. “We are thinking about them, and that is probably the extent of what we can say at this point.”
Garagiola, a former general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, is coordinating baseball’s discussions on Cuba.
Baseball is also considering moving a minor league team to Cuba and building training academies similar to those that nearly all teams have in the Dominican Republic, according to a report earlier this month by Fortune magazine.
I’m not interesting in Anglo-American baseball teams importing Cuban players. Not because I see them taking jobs away from ‘merican boys, but because I would rather like to see a Pan-Latin baseball league on par with MLB. There is no reason Cuban players shouldn’t be able to play major league games in Cuba, Mexico City or Monterrey.
MLB has treated Latin America as a source of cheap raw material for too long without sharing the wealth. There is a powerful corollary here between how MLB treats Latin America and how we as Americans treat Latin America.
