FOREIGN ALLEGIANCE

When the Dodgers admitted they had falsified documents in signing an underage Adrian Beltre, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig called it a “serious violation.”

Besides ordering the team to pay a $50,000 fine and Beltre $48,500 in extra compensation, Selig imposed a yearlong ban on scouting or signing first-year players from the Dominican. More significant, he ordered Campo Las Palmas, the Dodgers’ state-of-the-art baseball academy--the crown jewel of its Latin American operation--to shut down for a year.

“There are those who would like to dismiss that kind of behavior as ‘business as usual,’ ” Selig said. “We will not allow such an attitude to prevail.”

Slightly more than a year has passed since Selig’s admonishment, but what is happening here is business as usual.

Beltre, having failed to gain free-agent status in the wake of the allegations, is still the Dodgers’ third baseman.

Pablo Peguero, the Campo Las Palmas director punished for his role as Beltre’s signing scout, is back in charge.

English lessons are still taught five days a week in the Al Campanis classroom and three squares a day are served in the Tom Lasorda dining room. Dodger prospects still dress in the Roy Campanella clubhouse before playing games on Manny Mota Field.

Even Ramon, the security guard, is still at his post next to the sliding gate, sawed-off shotgun at his side.

The academy never closed, thanks to an appeal filed by the Dodgers and the Dominican government. The petition cited the welfare of the camp’s local employees, successfully--and quietly--changing the mind of major league baseball.

Unlike Selig’s Dec. 21, 1999, ruling, neither the petition nor the amendment was made public, confirmed Sandy Alderson, major league baseball’s executive vice president of baseball operations.

Closing the Dodger camp was intended to punish the franchise, Alderson said. But baseball officials relented after learning that the punishment would fall most harshly on the non-baseball personnel--more than 50 people, from administrators to groundskeepers, who work at the facility and would most likely have lost their jobs.

“It was basically on humanitarian grounds” that the appeal was granted, said Alderson, adding that because the academy was allowed to remain open, the Dodgers’ fine “was adjusted [and increased] by a substantial amount,” for a total believed to be $75,000.

Opened in March 1987, Campo Las Palmas is a sprawling 50-acre complex carved out of the Dominican jungle and resembles a country club more than a Third World baseball academy. And it is bustling on this particular afternoon.

Peguero, who returned to work when his yearlong suspension ended Dec. 31, is holding court. The players listen intently to his instructions before breaking for individual work.

One of them is Willy Aybar, a 17-year-old third baseman who signed with the Dodgers for $1.4 million on Jan. 31, 2000, getting in just before the signing ban took effect. Aybar said he didn’t hesitate to join the Dodgers and that the club’s reputation hasn’t been tarnished by the Beltre episode.

“It’s a grand opportunity, a stupendous opportunity,” said the switch-hitting Aybar, who hit .263 with four home runs and 49 runs batted in for rookie-level Great Falls, Mont., in 266 at-bats last summer. “The Dodgers are still the best team here in this country. Every player still wants to be a Dodger.”

Peguero and Rafael Perez, the administrator of major league baseball’s new office in the Dominican capital city of Santo Domingo, agree that not even a year of suspensions and bad publicity have hurt the Dodgers.

“We still have the best reputation,” Peguero said from his office in the camp’s Walter O’Malley headquarters.

Said Perez, slightly joking, “The Dodgers built a resort, that’s why everybody likes them.”

Considering his role in the Beltre case, Peguero’s continued employment by the Dodgers mystifies some, but he remains a respected figure here.

Part of Peguero’s job is to keep an open dialogue with Perez, baseball’s sheriff on the island. Peguero will also officially start scouting the Dominican again when the ban on scouting and signing ends March 27.

The Dodgers were a force in the Dominican long before the suspension, having graduated Beltre, Pedro Astacio, Roger Cedeno, Wilton Guerrero, brothers Pedro and Ramon Martinez, Raul Mondesi, Jose Offerman, Henry Rodriguez and Jose Vizcaino. Only two of those players--Beltre and Ramon Martinez--are currently with the Dodgers.

Peguero is looking forward to restocking the Dodger system with Dominican prospects.

“My promise is this: Starting in April, within three years, all the world will see the work that the Dodgers are going to be doing,” Peguero said. “Starting in April, when we can start scouting and signing the players here again, the Dodgers are going to be stronger than ever.”

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Staff writer Mike DiGiovanna contributed to this story.