He Embodies Island’s Devotion to Baseball

By a rule of United States immigration authorities, no team in major league baseball can employ in its minor league system more than 24 foreign players at the same time.

It isn’t spelled out specifically why such a rule has been implemented, but the general feeling is it is there to protect the American worker.

Just about every big league club has filled its quota, no surprise to Mr. Juan Samuel of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, who informs you that entertainers from his land alone could occupy all the spots that immigration permits.

Samuel, known among confederates as “Sammy,” rolled out of the Dominican in 1980 to take a place at the Philadelphia farm station in Bend, Ore., where, unable to read a menu in English, he confesses he ordered fried chicken every day for five weeks.

Of course, this harks back to the great immigration at the turn of the century, when Italians and Hungarians debarking ordered corn flakes for the same reason Samuel ordered fried chicken.

From what you might call a fowl beginning, Samuel would advance to a wage of roughly $1 million a year, the sum the Dodgers are paying him to play center field, a location he doesn’t relish.

Juan is partial to second base, but agrees to center field because of the charity in his heart and because the job pays a million bucks.

Besides Samuel, other Dominicans on the Dodgers’ big league roster are Alfredo Griffin, Ramon Martinez, Jose Gonzalez, Jose Offerman and Barulio Castillo.

And only recently, they have dealt off Dominican noblemen Pedro Guerrero, Alejandro Pena and Mariano Duncan, among others.

“People are a little shocked to see all these players coming out of the Dominican today,” says Samuel, “but it’s nothing special. The players have been there for years. It’s only recently (that) clubs have gone after them in a serious way.”

The last time Samuel counted, 20 teams in the majors were running full-scale programs in the Dominican Republic, mining for talent that comes (a) outside the draft and (b) cheap.

The year around, in a village called Las Palmas, the Dodgers sponsor a live-in camp accommodating 70 prospects at a time.

“You would call it costly,” Executive Vice President Fred Claire explains, “until you consider the whole operation runs less a year than the salary of just one big-time major league player.”

Samuel describes his history as garden-variety. He grew up in a family of seven children, from which the old man, now deceased, fled. The mother operated a small clothing store from which she earned enough to support her brood in a three-bedroom house where the four boys occupied one room, the three girls another and the mother the third.

It wasn’t until he came to this country that Juan discovered the luxury of sleeping alone. At home, the four brothers slept in two beds.

“San Pedro de Macoris is sugar cane country,” Samuel says. “And every factory sponsors a baseball team. The teams play tournaments the year around. And the kids dream of playing one day in America.

“Personally, I was never connected with sugar cane. I had a gentleman’s job in a pants factory, operating a machine that cut cloth for jeans. Our factory, too, sponsored a team. I worked the overnight shift from 10 until 6:30 in the morning. I would sleep, go out and play baseball and report for work.”

It develops one day that Samuel, then 18, gets a visit from a Philly scout, who wants to give him a tryout. “The only trouble,” Samuel recalls, “is that he wants to try me out at 9 in the morning. Without sleep, I was afraid I wouldn’t be sharp, but I didn’t want to cancel the tryout for fear I would never get another. I also was afraid to skip work for fear I would get fired.”

The devastating dilemma of this young man is solved by his brother Carlos, a foreman in the factory.

“Carlos reports me as sick,” says Juan.

To condense a long and painful account, the scout signs Samuel, slipping him a check for $2,500. That was more than he earned at the pants factory in 2 1/2 years.

“My poor mother broke into tears,” he says. “She ran to the neighbors, telling them her son was a success. The whole island is on fire with kids who play baseball. They play day and night, the year around. The majors now know they are there. They will take as many as the law allows.”

The chronology can be interesting. You never know when yesterday’s pants cutter will be today’s center fielder.