Standing Out IN ANY Crowd : Dodgers’ Jose Offerman Is Another in Long Line of Shortstops From Town in Dominican Republic

Despite the clutter of Jose Offerman’s hometown, finding the Dodger shortstop there is as easy as finding him on a baseball field.

From the capital of Santo Domingo, drive for an hour along a placid two-lane highway that borders the Caribbean Sea. When the breeze stops and the calm ends, you know you are close.

Cross a narrow bridge spanning a sewage-coated river. The road is crowded, the scent is strong. Motor scooters buzz around burros. Men in beards and bare feet jostle for space as they push their lives in large carts.

Veer right, into the city center where ramshackle stores line the street, and the volume goes up. Traffic is stalled by beggars wearing rags, women with baskets on their heads, policemen with machine guns on their hips.

Pull up to a stop sign that is shaking with the thump-thump-thump of a nearby stereo . . . and there he is.

Wearing flashy jewelry and designer jeans, Jose Offerman is standing on a street corner, hands in pockets, yawning as if he has been standing there all day.

As always, he is in the middle of all the commotion. And he is impossible to miss.

“That boy, he has always been under the spotlight, always in the center of everything, and everybody always say that boy is not ready for it,” said Ralph Avila, the Dodgers’ player development coordinator in this baseball-mad country. “But he always survives it. And this year, everybody will see, he will survive it again.”

As Offerman invites a visitor to his family’s crowded third-floor apartment in a housing project on the banks of that pungent river, his warm smile belies the pressure he soon will feel.

Some of the worries will come from Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be the Dodgers’ opening-day shortstop and is a candidate to become the first Dodger since 1982 to win rookie-of-the-year honors.

As the baby among position players who will average eight years of experience, he will be forced to grow up quickly.

But his most cumbersome mental load must be carried from here, in San Pedro, where Offerman is expected to extend one of baseball’s most curious legacies. He is a shortstop in a town of major league shortstops.

Tony Fernandez of the San Diego Padres was born here. So were the Texas Rangers’ Julio Franco and the Cincinnati Reds’ Mariano Duncan, who started their careers at short before moving to second base. And the Houston Astros’ Rafael Ramirez and the Toronto Blue Jays’ Manny Lee. One other shortstop, the Dodgers’ Alfredo Griffin, grew up here.

Other major leaguers born here include George Bell of the Chicago Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Pedro Guerrero and the Dodgers’ Juan Samuel.

Theories abound as to the reason for such baseball production from a poor town of about 128,000. Most think it was because, 30 years ago, the local sugar mills attracted immigrants from Cuba, where the baseball tradition used to be the strongest in Latin America.

“The parents of the kids who come out of San Pedro all teach them the game at a young age; they’re all obviously from a baseball background,” said Al Campanis, the former Dodger general manager who laid the groundwork for the club’s successful scouting efforts here.

“It is obvious that what Cuba used to be, this part of the Dominican Republic is now.”

Offerman says he doesn’t know the reasons. He only knows what he hears from his mother, Maria, when she is asked about her son playing major league baseball.

“I have waited and waited for the day that he plays for the Dodgers,” she said. “I have asked God for that day.”

He also knows about his apartment. It is too small. There are three bedrooms for 10 people.

The view out the balcony is of a graveyard. The street below is the only route into town, so the air inside the apartment is filled with noise and haze and, of course, the smell of that river.

Offerman’s priorities are as visible as the collection of trophies that dominate the small living room.

“I want to help my family. I want to make this better,” he said, glancing around the small rooms. “I know people in my family, and my friends, they depend on me. My family asks me for money, I give it to them. My friends ask me for money, I do what I can.

He added: “I don’t have much. But I think one day, I can be very good in the major leagues. And then I can do more.”

Offerman also knows what he sees when he visits the field where he once played. Those who still play there also are praying for him.

The field is located a few blocks from his tenement, in a clearing behind a rusted sugar mill. The infield is overgrown with weeds and covered with rocks; the air is filled with smoke from supper being cooked in nearby shacks.

“If I can catch a ground ball on this field,” Offerman said with a shrug, “I can catch a ground ball anywhere.”

There is an organized game being played this afternoon, with each player wearing the usual Dominican assortment of a torn major league shirt, hole-filled pants from a different major league team and a cap representing a third team.

When Offerman arrives, play momentarily stops. The pitcher waves. The first baseman cries out. Children in their underwear gather around to touch him.

“I love the attention--when I am doing good,” he said. “But when I am not doing good, I don’t like people to look.”

Last season, for his work with triple-A Albuquerque, he was voted the minor league player of the year by the Sporting News. But his most dramatic moment of the season did not come in the minor leagues.

That happened at Dodger Stadium Aug. 19 when he led off the game with a home run against the Montreal Expos’ Dennis Martinez. It was Offerman’s first at-bat in the major leagues.

But there are problems that the sheen of those preseason baseball magazines cannot hide.

Offerman is only 22. His skills were so raw when he signed with the Dodgers in 1986 that he was kept at their Campo Las Palmas academy in the Dominican Republic for two years before being allowed to play in a U.S. rookie league.

“He was as green as I’ve ever seen,” Avila said. “Green as the grass.”

Three years of sanctioned professional baseball have not been enough to soften the edges.

In 1989, he committed a combined 52 errors in double-A and triple-A play. That is about twice as many errors as the major leagues’ poorest fielding shortstops will commit in one season.

Last season, he made 40 errors with Albuquerque and Los Angeles, two of which came in the ninth inning of the Dodgers’ most memorable loss of the season.

On Aug. 21 against Philadelphia, Offerman twice threw away grounders that helped the Phillies come back from an early 11-1 deficit to win, 12-11.

“There are certain things he does in the field that are a hindrance to him,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said, referring to Offerman’s balance and positioning. “But we think these things are correctable. We really feel that by the end of spring training, after working with (coach) Billy (Russell) and myself, I think he will be ready to be a starting shortstop.”

Even though he was a career .300 hitter in the minor leagues, Offerman struggled offensively in his 29 games with the Dodgers last season. He hit only .155 while trying to duplicate his memorable homer with each ensuing swing.

“I was so surprised to hit the home run, and then after that, I play different,” he said.

So why would he be the opening-day starter? Because the Dodgers love his potential, and hated Alfredo Griffin’s 26 errors last season, highest in the National League among shortstops.

“We know Jose is going to be a good major league shortstop; we just don’t know when,” one Dodger official said. “But it looks like we’re going to need him now.”

Offerman’s tour of his hometown ended on a street several miles from his family’s apartment. On the right side, next to a nightclub, was a block of stone walls.

Behind those walls were three large houses with multiple levels, ornate windows and garages that were bigger than most Dominican homes.

“In this house, Alfredo Griffin lives,” Offerman said solemnly, pointing through the car’s window. “And next to him, George Bell. And next to him, Joaquin Andujar.”

Traffic suddenly stopped. A massive bull had stopped in the middle of the road in front of Bell’s house. The bull was relieving itself.

While bystanders giggled, Offerman didn’t look. He stared at the houses of the three baseball stars and quietly drummed his fingers on his designer jeans.