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A new game face Globalization of the grand old game hits all-time highPosted: Friday July 11, 2003 12:09 PM
When Felipe Alou broke into the big leagues, some 45 years ago, he did not see the game that he sees now. The face of the game, and the faces, were a lot different then. In that year, 1958, more than a decade had passed since Jackie Robinson crossed baseball's color barrier. Yet when Alou stepped onto the field as a major leaguer for the first time, a 23-year-old college-educated sensation from the Dominican Republic, whites still ruled the game. Alou broke in with one of the most integrated of the major league teams, the San Francisco Giants. But black players, for the most part, lockered away from the whites. One of Alou's earliest managers, Alvin Dark, told the Latin players that they could not speak Spanish to each other at the ballpark. There were hurdles for Alou every day, in language, in simply being accepted, in living in a new country in a strange culture. "The writers," Alou says now, "used to make fun of us. I found it to be … ridiculous. I found it to be low class. I found it to be prejudiced. I found it to be ignorant." These days, Alou, the 67-year-old manager of the Giants, looks around baseball and sees what everybody else sees. He sees a game that is increasingly more international in flavor. He sees players from his native Dominican Republic, lots of them, mixing with Puerto Ricans and Cubans and Venezuelans. He sees Canadians, something he never used to see. And now he sees Japanese and Koreans staking their claim as legitimate major league players. "We were the ones who opened the doors for the rest of the nationalities," Alou says of his Latin teammates. "But we had it tough."
About 28 percent of this year's NL roster, and better than 31 percent of the AL roster, is made up of players born outside the 50 states. In fact, all three starting outfielders for the AL, and two-thirds of the starting nine, are foreign-born, speaking from a U.S. point of view. Those numbers roughly reflect the makeup of baseball as a whole. Almost 28 percent of the 827 players on Opening Day rosters this year were born outside the United States. They represent 16 foreign countries, from Latin America to Australia, and the baseball hotbed of Puerto Rico, a U.S. commonwealth. That figure is up from 26.1 percent last season, and it's a number than has been steadily rising for years. In 1997, 19 percent of major leaguers were born outside of the 50 states. In 1970, it was just 10 percent. "I would say, within the next 8-10 years, there's going to come that time," says Alou, "when the percentage of foreign-born players is going to be more than [the percentage of U.S.-born players]. It's coming." In the minor leagues, it's practically here. According to numbers from MLB, nearly half of the more than 6,000 players signed to pro contracts -- 46 percent -- were born outside of the U.S. They represent more than 32 countries around the world. The game, much faster than it did when Alou broke in, is changing. And the whole world is getting in on it. "Major League Baseball has become 200 times more visible in the last five years in Japan," says Ray Poitevint, a longtime major league scout and now the chief executive officer of the International Baseball Bureau, a scouting firm that does much of its work in Japan and Korea. "I think every year, a slight percentage [in players from outside the U.S. playing American baseball] continues to increase. I don’t think there's any looking back." Latin America continues to pound out major league players -- there were 79 players from the Dominican Republic alone on Opening Day rosters this year -- but other countries are starting to contribute to American baseball, too. Among them are Canada (10 players on Opening Day rosters), Australia (three) and Europe (two). "At school, I was the only guy who played baseball. Everyone thought I was a little different," says pitcher Damian Moss, who grew up in Darlinghurst, Australia, and now throws for Alou's Giants. "There are a lot of people who can play baseball out there." Moss tells the story of his Australian youth team, playing a team of Korean all-stars. The other team's shortstop threw low across the diamond, forcing his first baseman to dig out the throw for the out. The shortstop was immediately pulled from the game.
"You see guys who come from nothing, working so hard at what they do. I think that's one of the reasons the game is so good, something that makes the product better," Moss says. "You get talent from everywhere." The increase in international players may be due, in part, to a marked decrease in black players born in the U.S. According to an article in the July 7, 2003, issue of Sports Illustrated, only 10 percent of the players on 25-man major league rosters and disabled lists -- a total of 90 players -- are U.S.-born blacks. In contrast, 27 percent of big league ballplayers in 1975 were African-American. The decrease in black ballplayers is evident in the All-Star Game, too, where there are only nine African-Americans among the 64 players on the rosters. That's just over 14 percent. The American League did not have a single African-American voted to its starting lineup by the fans. Only one of the 24 pitchers in the game, Cleveland's C.C. Sabathia, is an African-American. Other nationalities have been quick to take over for the decreasing number of African-Americans in the game. Most recently, there has been an influx of Japanese players. The first Japanese player in the major leagues was a pitcher, Masanori Murakami, who played for the Giants in 1964 and '65. Another pitcher, Hideo Nomo, came over in 1995 and was the NL's Rookie of the Year, with a 13-6 record and a 2.54 ERA. But the real breakthrough came in 2001 when Ichiro Suzuki -- now known as simply "Ichiro" -- became the first Japanese position player in the majors, and with smashing success. Ichiro won the 2001 AL Rookie of the Year award and the league's MVP, smacking 242 hits, batting .350 and stealing 56 bases while leading the Seattle Mariners to a 116-win season. This season, another Japanese player, outfielder Hideki Matsui, is on pace to become the AL Rookie of the Year. He is hitting .301 with nine home runs and 65 RBIs for the New York Yankees. In all, there were 11 Japanese players on Opening Day rosters. There will be more to come. "I think there are more players from Japan and Korea that can make an impact than ever before," Poitevint says. "Except there is going to be a certain percentage that says, 'No, thank you. I like it here.'" Twenty years ago, scouts in Latin America could wander over to a city park in, say, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and watch four youth games at once. Several major league teams were represented during these mostly informal workouts. And if a local player didn't get a bite from one of the teams, he'd simply move to another diamond and work out in front of another set of scouts. "It's really changed a lot in the last five or six years," says Frank Wren, who worked Latin America for the Montreal Expos starting in the mid-1980s and is now vice president and assistant general manager for the Atlanta Braves. "In those days, it was the kids themselves, or the kids and their parents. If you were impressed, if you liked what you saw, you signed them on the spot. That was more the norm. "I think the kids are much more aware now. Not only in Latin America, but here in the draft, too. In the mid-'80s, very few kids had a real understanding of what was going on. Kids understand much more now. The wide-eyed kid who just wanted to play? I think that has changed." Now, most teams have baseball academies established in places like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where the talent is plentiful and, generally, much cheaper to sign. Major League Baseball teams pour some $60 million into scouting and running these academies, all to find the next 16-year-old phenom and bring him to America to play. Individual clubs run the academies, but Major League Baseball has taken huge strides into gaining a foothold for the American game outside of America. MLB has developmental offices in London, Toronto and Sydney, Australia. They regularly schedule spring training games outside of the U.S., including in Mexico. Regular-season openers outside of the U.S. are becoming commonplace. The Montreal Expos scheduled 22 regular-season games this season in Puerto Rico. It's all part of a master plan to sell the game outside of the U.S. -- where, not coincidentally, more and more of its players are coming from every year. "I think, from a baseball perspective, we’re looking for the best players," Wren says. "And I think that's why you've seen the game spread so much in the last few years." It's the changing face of baseball. And it's one that Alou welcomes with open arms. "I've had guys from everywhere. But the game needs more good players," Alou says. "Baseball is an integrated, international game." John Donovan is a senior writer for SI.com.
Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.
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