Edwin Tapia Joins the Dodgers : In the Dominican Republic, Almost Every Boy Dreams of Playing Major-League Baseball in America. And Every Scout Dreams of Signing a Kid Who Plays Like Pedro Guerrero

Los Angeles Dodger scout Ralph Avila shifts the Land Rover into four-wheel drive and fishtails through the spume of a mountain stream. Behind him lie five hours of hot dust and jungle. Ahead looms the jagged cordillera that forms the Dominican Republic’s border with Haiti.

Avila’s destination is La Meseta, a torpid Dominican village of 30 families that bureaucrats back in Santo Domingo prefer to overlook. The town has no paved streets, plumbing or electricity. Its sole civic improvement is a rock-strewn baseball diamond. In a farming community without irrigation or fertilizer, that field is arguably La Meseta’s most fertile plot of ground, for it has produced Edwin Aquino Tapia, a young pitcher whose power and poise remind Dodger scouts of Sandy Koufax.

“This boy can throw 86 m.p.h. and he’s only 20,” Avila yells as palm fronds rake the roof of the lurching car. “He’s already got the strength of a major-leaguer. Just think what he’ll do once Larry Sherry and Johnny Podres get hold of him. In three years I bet he’ll be throwing 90 m.p.h.”

Tapia had been seen several months before by Dodger scout Eliodoro Arias at a semipro game in the Dominican city of San Juan. “It was the ninth inning of a lopsided game, and all the other scouts had gone home,” Avila, a Cuban, says with a wink. “We’ve been in contact ever since, and Eliodora says the boy’s amazing. I think we’re the first baseball scouts ever to make it all the way to this village.”

Pascual Aquino, his wife Damiana Tapia, their 10 children and the family burro all are on hand to greet Avila. At 6 feet 3 and 181 pounds, Edwin is not hard to spot. On this scrubby plateau, deep within the island of Hispaniola, only the banana trees are taller than he. The boy is all ankles and arms, a jungle sprout with the fingers of a concert pianist. “Edwin began playing ball when he was 12 right out there,” his 56-year-old father says proudly, waving his sweat-stained fedora toward a fallow bean field. “We should be getting some rain,” he sighs, surveying a distant stand of withered corn. “It’s going to be awfully dry come summer.”

Inside the Aquinos’ small clapboard home, chairs are gathered around a homemade table that Avila quickly covers with glossy brochures. For Edwin and his parents, it’s like a sneak preview of heaven.

“This is the pool where Jackie Robinson used to swim,” Avila says, “and these are our classrooms. Just look at that dining room. A lot of clubs put their rookies in motels and give ‘em $10 for meal money, but at Dodgertown, Edwin eats with Valenzuela and sleeps in a room identical to Pedro Guerrero’s. And if he’s fortunate,” Avila says, pointing to a picture of a sellout crowd in Dodger Stadium on a smogless day, “this is where he’ll be working in a few years.

“Some second-division club may offer you a bigger bonus, but if you sign with them, remember that the only money you’ll ever get is your salary,” Avila explains to the rookie. “Players earn extra for getting to the playoffs and the World Series. You want Edwin to get that playoff money, don’t you?” he asks, turning back to the parents. “Well, he’s got the opportunity with the Dodgers because we’re always pennant contenders.”

“The life of a professional ballplayer isn’t easy,” Avila says, and heads nod in agreement. “Joaquin Andujar is a millionaire today, but he had to suffer first. You don’t make a great deal of money your first three years.”

“I understand,” Edwin’s father says. “But there’s nothing to be afraid of in the U.S. I’m just happy he’s got a chance to travel away from here.”

“There’s a lot of temptation in the U.S.,” Avila says with a sigh and a slight uplift of eyes. “Cars are very important up there, and Edwin will want a Chevrolet. But he can’t afford to play around if he wants to be a success.”

“ Exactamente, “ says Damiana with a stern look at her son. “No fantasies now!” she says in mock reproof.

“Edwin, do you want to be a star?” Avila asks.

“ Si, senor. “

“Well, then give me three years of sacrifice. Practice eight hours a day. Go back home and rest at night. You have the skills to earn $80,000 in three to four years, and if you work hard, I think you will.”

Outside the house, a neighbor squats in the shade, preening his fighting cock. Children scamper through the swirling smoke from a cooking fire. Inside, Avila takes a yellow player contract from his briefcase, pushes his Dodger cap back off his forehead and hands a pen to the parents. In return for their signatures, the family receives a $4,000 bonus, almost three times their annual income. Avila gains a pitcher whose earned-run average over the last 60 innings of semipro ball is 0.61.

“Before this moment Edwin has been part of your family,” Avila says, snapping his briefcase closed. “But from now on,” he says, turning to the bashful rookie, “you’re part of mine, too. When you arrive at spring training, I’ll be buying the clothes and providing food.” He slaps the boy benevolently on the shoulder. “From now on I’m your father, your priest and your benefactor.”

Forty years ago, U.S. baseball had only one Latin American starting regularly--shortstop Gil Torres of the Washington Senators. Today, Latinos account for more than 10% of the 650 major-league players. The percentage is even higher in the minor leagues, where one of every six players claims beisbol as his profession. No team has been more active than the Dodgers in recruiting Latin players. From the headwaters of the Amazon to the Mexican border, 16 scouts constantly look for talent. The results of their efforts will be seen this week when spring training begins at Vero Beach, Fla. Ten Latin veterans will suit up in Dodger blue, four more than a decade ago. They will be joined by 30 Spanish-speaking minor-leaguers and rookies, the newest of whom, Edwin Tapia, didn’t even own a baseball glove until two years ago.

In the business of baseball, where young talent is the most valuable commodity, the Dominican Republic is a mother lode of promising rookies. Though the country’s population, is only 6.2 million, 36 Dominicans play major-league baseball. Canada, by comparison, which has two baseball franchises and a population of 24.3 million, currently can muster only one major-leaguer--Pittsburgh Pirate outfielder Doug Frobel.

San Pedro de Macoris, a sugar-mill town of 123,000, 40 miles east of Santo Domingo, has become the most important city in the hemisphere for professional baseball. Over the past 15 years, 270 Macoristas have made it to the major leagues. A dozen are currently playing in the majors--including Pedro Guerrero and Mariano Duncan of the Dodgers--with 140 more on U.S. minor-league teams. If the Dodgers had played the Toronto Blue Jays in last year’s World Series, 12% of the players would have been Dominicans, and 10% would have called San Pedro home.

“We look for talent wherever we can find it,” says Dodger executive vice president Fred Claire, “but there’s no question the best place to start looking is in the Dominican Republic.”

Baseball was brought to the Dominican Republic by U.S. Marines, who occupied the country from 1916 to 1924. One of the biggest fans was Gen. Rafael Trujillo, a dictator who owned the Dominican League’s Escojido baseball team. Trujillo dominated Dominican politics and sports for more than 30 years, but in 1959, when Fidel Castro’s guerrillas came down from the Sierra Maestra in nearby Cuba, Trujillo began to worry. Some advisers suggested it might be time for a democratic election. Instead, Trujillo defoliated large stretches of the country’s Central Cordillera, figuring that the easiest way to defuse an insurgency was to deny it a place to hide.

The tactic halted communism’s march through the Antilles, but it was hell on agriculture. The coffee and tobacco industries declined rapidly, but Trujillo told his people to look on the bright side. Turn those leached swatches of mountainside into baseball fields, he said, and the government would provide the Louisville Sluggers. Free baseball equipment was an offer few villages could refuse.

The Dominican passion for baseball continues. The climate allows the game to be played year-round, and with a 25% unemployment rate there is plenty of time for the jobless to work on their screwball. Between sugar-cane harvests in the rural areas, boys pass the days hitting cloth-bound rocks with appropriately sized tree limbs. “Everyone around here plays baseball,” laughs Pascual Aquino. “There’s nothing else to do. We play for fun, not for money.”

According to Dominican Baseball Commissioner Reynaldo Bisono, tens of thousands of baseball games are played throughout the Dominican Republic every Sunday. San Pedro de Macoris alone has more than 200 teams. Baseball is more than the national pastime, Bisono explains. “It is part of our national identity. In your country, people make heroes out of politicians. Down here we admire a good shortstop.”

Bisono may be guilty of understatement. Inside most campesino homes, a picture of the local baseball team hangs beside that of Jesus Christ. At the Gomez Patino Hospital in Santo Domingo, male newborns are identified not by blue booties but by tiny baseball uniforms.

Dominicans take baseball seriously, but on the field it is still very much a game. There is no exploding scoreboard or Astroturf at Santo Domingo’s Quisqueya Stadium. The infield, like a comfortable toupee, has precise dimensions but is a bit ragged around the edge. The fans that pack the 16,000-seat stadium might raise a few eyebrows at Dodger Stadium--if they could afford a ticket. They suck on lollipops, slurp pina coladas , dance to marimba music between innings and embrace the closest stranger at he drop of a sacrifice bunt.

Quisqueya may be the best place in the hemisphere to watch baseball. Indeed, one can pass a pleasant afternoon without watching the game at all. The atmosphere is a blend of Rio Carnaval, the Circus Circus casino and the deciding game of the World Series. Icy beer, barbecued chicken and chunks of three varieties of cheese are available. Rum at $1.15 a bottle comes in plastic flasks bearing the invitation to “pour in a little rum and give flavor to your emotions.” Vendors not only allow you to run up a tab but they also return periodically with fresh ice and the latest odds offered by bookies who cruise “Wall Street”--the nickname given to the uppermost tier of the grandstand.

The carnival atmosphere ends abruptly at the box seats behind home plate, which are reserved for major-league scouts. There is little eating or drinking here. In this part of the grandstand, baseball is serious business. Scouts are speculators in baseball futures, a risky enterprise since only 3% of the players signed ever reach the big leagues.

It is twilight in Santo Domingo, and Quisqueya is packed with fans who have come for the Dominican League’s All-Star Game. Behind the plate, the scouts’ conversation turns on the cost of signing players, both here and in the U.S. “Personally, I like to sign ‘em right out of high school,” says Larry Himes, scouting director for the California Angels. “I tell the guy who wants to play baseball not to waste his time in college.”

“We’ve had good luck with college players,” counters Al Campanis, Dodger vice president and director of player personnel. “At least their adjustment is easier. The players from down here have tremendous problems with the language and food (in the United States). We’ve had a couple of great prospects who just got homesick and quit.”

A sharply hit line drive momentarily stops conversation. “Not a bad swing,” Campanis muses as the Licey Tiger runner scrambles back to first base.

“I might sign a senior but not a college junior,” Himes continues. “It can cost an additional $70,000 to sign a junior who has the option to complete his senior year. A senior can’t bargain; if he wants to play ball, he signs. It’s all a question of leverage.”

“Every year the bonus goes up $25,000,” sighs the Phillies’ Joe McDonald, waving away a vendor determined to peddle yucca croquettes. “Who knows where it’s going to end?”

Though it often seems a contentious business based on salary arbitration, American baseball actually is tightly regulated. Twice each year, amateurs become eligible for the draft. From that pool of eligible talent, 26 teams select in turn--the club with the worst record choosing first. A prospect who believes a club’s offer is inadequate can put himself back in the pool, hoping to receive a more generous offer from another club in a subsequent draft. But it is a risky ploy, and with first-round bonuses currently averaging from $80,000 to $100,000, most elect to sign.

Latin America, in contrast, is a huge supermarket of talent where every player age 17 and over is a free agent. In the Dominican Republic, where supply is greater than demand, bonuses run from $3,000 to $5,000. The prospect of signing a player at a fraction of the U.S. price is so attractive that 16 teams spend between $30,000 and $50,000 a year on Dominican baseball academies designed to spot, evaluate and improve potential major-leaguers.

The country-club atmosphere uniting baseball’s franchise owners in the United States does nothing to mellow the competition between their scouts in Latin America. The Houston Astros screen prospects at a guarded sugar mill. With the help of Dominican-born, former San Francisco Giant pitcher Juan Marichal, Oakland was able to locate its school inside the Santo Domingo Navy Yard.

Some clubs have tried to hide talented prospects. Three years ago, the Dodgers, Cardinals and Blue Jays--all of whom had more talent than they could sign--got help from Domingo Monchine Pichardo, owner of the Dominican League’s Licey Tigers, who put 186 players on his active roster, temporarily denying other major-league scouts access to them. Since it’s not fair to take a player out of the open market without offering him the security of a contract, professional baseball now requires a player be signed or released within 30 days of entering an academy. Last October, when Pirate scout Pablo Cruz heard that the Yankees were hiding an outstanding left-handed pitcher for more than two months, he marched into the Yankee academy and signed him.

Avila keeps the competitive edge sharp by distributing 20,000 baseball caps throughout the Caribbean Basin every year. “You’ve got to keep the doctors, judges and police chiefs on your side in Latin America,” he says. “If they were to start advising young players to sign with St. Louis or Pittsburgh, the Dodgers would be dead down here.”

“Recently, the Royals tried to steal a player from me,” Avila confides. “I offered $5,000, and they came in with a $10,000 bonus. He signed with the Dodgers anyway. I’d been talking to the boy since he was 14 and once had given his father some money when he lost his job.”

A foreman in a Miami sheet-metal shop by day, Avila was managing a semipro Cuban team in Florida when the Dodgers noticed his ability to evaluate young ballplayers. He scouted two years for free and in 1970 moved to the Dominican Republic to direct Latin American scouting. Since then he has signed 100 players; 10 of them, including Dodger shortstop Mariano Duncan, have reached the majors. As a baseball scout, Avila has only one peer--74-year-old Howie Haak, the Pirate of the Caribbean.

A Palm Springs resident who has roamed the Caribbean for 29 years, Haak plays Long John Silver to Avila’s Capt. Smollett. While Avila keeps dietary charts, gives inspirational lectures and monitors church attendance, Haak hobbles between playing fields looking for “fast sumbitches who can score from second on a single.”

“I give ‘em less than their worth in the U.S. but more than they could ever earn down here,” Haak rasps. “Three thousand tops with a $7,500 bonus if they make the Pirates. That’s like spitting out the window if you can get a major-leaguer for $10,000.”

Haak’s unconventional approach has produced 60 major-league players. Haak proteges such as Manny Sanguillen, Rennie Stennett, Julian Javier (later traded to the Cardinals), Al McBean, Omar Moreno and Angel Mangual made the Pirates a frequent pennant contender from 1958 to 1983. “I signed Manny Giron out of Panama, and boy, that rascal could throw,” he remembers. “He lived in a hut right on the ocean with his father, who was a fisherman. When I came for the signature, I had to pull the old man down from a coconut tree.”

Haak attributes his success to one simple rule: “I go for the mothers.”

“Back in 1973, I almost lost Miguel Dilone, a 17-year-old kid, when Cardinal scout Roberto Diaz kidnaped him out of school,” Haak says as he walks across the Quisqueya infield to the boisterous dugout of the Santiago Aguilas. “The kid was 17, but the Cardinals grabbed the father and got his signature. I went for the mother. She was crying, ‘Where’s my little boy,’ and I told her, ‘Hell, lady, I want him too.’ It took me a year, but I raised the ante $4,000 and finally got him.”

Located on the outskirts of San Pedro de Macoris in the shadow of a rusting sugar mill, the Dodger academy is both baseball camp and finishing school. Since its founding six years ago, more than 4,000 Dominicans have received tryouts. Three times a week, young hopefuls from the provinces are invited to join the 40 athletes in residence for a tryout. Those who can run 60 yards in under seven seconds, hit a curve ball and throw with some power are offered a month’s room and board and a chance to make the rookie squad. One measure of the academy’s standards is that 200 of its rejects have been signed by other major-league clubs.

“A lot of players arrive here with style but no strength,” says Avila. “We feed them plenty of meat and vitamins and see if they can develop their skills on the ball field and make progress at the nightly English class. If their attitude is positive and they learn from their mistakes, there’s a chance they’ll eventually be asked to join the Dodger family.”

School starts at 10 a.m. at the Dodger academy, when uniformed rookies and teen-agers seeking tryouts form a thin blue line. At 10:01, inspection begins when Ralph Avila strides across the infield.

“Spring training will be starting soon, and that means working harder,” he says to the milling teens. “I have a small trophy here for Rolando Bell, who is a good example of what I mean by hard work,” he says as he straps a Japanese watch on the young outfielder’s wrist. “It’s not expensive, but at least it’s gold.”

By 10:10 the sweat is starting to flow. While Avila times new arrivals for speed, four assistant coaches hit ground balls, try to improve a second baseman’s double-play pivot, and loft fungoes to outfielders who glide around cow paddies. As the morning passes, other teens filter through the coconut groves to test themselves, mostly unsuccessfully, against Avila’s stopwatch.

“None of this batch will ever amount to anything,” he mutters, but when one boy in a U.S.A. for AFRICA T-shirt asks for a second chance, Avila smiles encouragement.

The morning, like every other, is devoted to fundamentals monotonously repeated beneath the white glare of a cloudless sky. One youth has trouble bunting; another winces at the sight of a curve. Both receive attention.

“Chico Fernandez (a former Brooklyn Dodger from Cuba) used to say the baseball field is a factory, but I feel differently,” Avila says as a self-proclaimed pitcher warms up. “Baseball is my religion, and this field is my church. And out there . . . out there are my disciples.”

The Dodgers’ interest in Latino recruiting has not resulted by accident. Los Angeles was the first team to broadcast its games in Spanish. Thirty Mexican radio stations rebroadcast every game pitched by Fernando Valenzuela. That Campanis, manager Tom Lasorda, the team trainer and three of the five pitching coaches speak Spanish aids in recruiting. In all, 28 people in the Dodger organization are fluent in Spanish. The team’s image is especially strong in the Dominican Republic, where the Licey Tigers under Dodger management won seven Dominican League championships and four All-Caribbean titles over a 12-year period.

The race for Latin talent is not just a public-relations battle. To a large extent, a team’s ability to compete for a pennant today is determined by its scouting organization in Latin America. Though Latins are free agents, they cannot be freely signed. The number of aliens allowed into big-league farm systems is strictly regulated. Each club has a quota, but unlike the player draft, which favors the perennially weak, the distribution of minor-league visas is determined by the commissioner of baseball, who must balance the individual demands of 26 teams against government pressures to limit the number of foreigners playing America’s summer game.

In the early 1970s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Labor suddenly realized that the national pastime was moving offshore. Baseballs were stitched in Haiti; Japan was promoting the aluminum bat. A growing percentage of baseball gloves was coming from Taiwan. As for players, Americans weren’t being forced out of baseball, but their abilities were being challenged. Half of the starting lineup of the 1971 world champion Pittsburgh Pirates hailed from Latin America. Cincinnati’s strongest hitter in the 1972 World Series was not Pete Rose but Tony Perez from Camaguey, Cuba. In 1973, a quota was imposed.

A major-league team’s quota results from bargaining with the commissioner’s office. It can be increased by a trade in which a Latin player is acquired, or reduced arbitrarily if the club, as is the case with some American League teams, shows no real interest in adding Latinos to its roster. Pittsburgh can import 31 Latinos, while the Dodgers are limited to 24. The Angels, who entered the Latin American recruiting scramble late and don’t have an academy, would like to have 22 visas but must settle for a quota of 18. Ironically, Toronto, which can find no Canadian players worthy of a uniform, has 39 Latinos under contract. Montreal, which has a quota of only eight, does not aggressively push for a larger number because Latins often have difficulty adjusting to Quebec’s French-speaking culture.

Though the number of foreign players allowed into the U.S. rookie and minor leagues is limited to 526 (major-leaguers receive H-1 visas and are not included under the quota), baseball remains sensitive to the ethnic question. “We don’t discuss this issue,” says George Pfister, an administrator in the baseball commissioner’s office in charge of labor and immigration matters. “If some teams had their way, they’d be signing 50 or 60 Latins, but now they realize they can’t go whole hog.”

It is midway through the third inning of a practice game with the St. Louis academy at the seaside town of Boca Chica, and Edwin Tapia is throwing nothing but strikes. Dressed in a blue guayabera, Al Campanis paces the dugout assessing his new acquisition. “It’s not what you see but what you think you’ll see. That’s my philosophy of scouting,” he says rhetorically. “Well,” Avila says, “what do you think you’re seeing?”

“I like him even better than your report,” Campanis grins. “He’s still a baby, but will you look at that delivery? Wait till we get some milk in him at Vero Beach.”

Two fastballs and a curve send the Cardinal batter corkscrewing into the dust for the third out. Tapia ambles into the dugout, and Campanis shakes his hand. “He’s got fingers just like Koufax,” Campanis announces, pulling the lanky rookie down beside him on the bench.

“You’re a little bit skinny,” says Campanis, massaging the rookie’s shoulder. “Don’t you eat meat?”

“Plenty of meat,” Tapia ventures. “Desserts, too. My mother does great things with coconut.”

Campanis smiles and settles back on the bench, his arm around the rookie’s shoulders. “The Dominicans are great people,” he says, despite the return of one who just struck out. “Always respect your parents and remember to go to church.”

“I guess I may have missed a few Sundays,” Tapia admits sheepishly, picking up his glove for a return trip to the mound.

“It’s important you go to church,” Campanis warns. “And don’t put rum in your Coke. Better still, just stick to milk. You have what it takes to become a star.”

“Gracias, “ says Tapia, turning to leave, but Campanis is still holding on.

“Son,” he whispers paternally. “Say, gracias, Senor Campanis. “