League Keeps Eye on Activities

Underage signings and secret tryouts prompted major league baseball to open its first Latin American office here on Dec. 5.

The move has been rumored as the precursor to a worldwide draft, but office administrator Rafael Perez says the goal is to uphold baseball’s rules and enhance its reputation in Latin America.

That’s no small challenge when the Dodgers alone have been fined repeatedly for violating baseball’s rules in scouting and signing four Latin-born players.

“By having a presence here, we can ensure that we take a more formal approach,” said Perez, 33, a native son who pitched in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league system. “Baseball has been running things in Latin America in a very informal way.”

Establishing an outpost in the Wild West atmosphere that has prevailed here was long in the works, but controversies such as the Dodgers’ signing of an underage Adrian Beltre further served as an impetus, Perez said.

Beltre, the Dodger third baseman, was 15 when he was signed by the team, which admitted altering his birth date on paperwork to make him appear 16--the minimum signing age.

Before that, the Dodgers had been fined for conducting secret tryouts in Cuba for players Juan Carlos Diaz and Josue Perez and allegedly helping arrange their defections.

Most recently, they have been fined for trying out Felix Arrellan, a minor league pitcher from Venezuela, when he was 14, then signing him when he was 15.

The Dodgers have paid about $350,000 in fines, although baseball won’t say exactly how much. The Dodgers maintain that the cases were isolated incidents.

Baseball’s new two-person office here can be found in a converted five-bedroom house in the island capital’s Vergel district. Major league baseball’s logo is painted on its gated front wall.

Some see the office as a symbol of baseball’s plans to further mine Latin America for cheap labor. Others contend that baseball is giving underprivileged young men from the Third World an unfathomable financial opportunity.

What isn’t in doubt is that the sport is growing increasingly dependent on Latin America’s talent pool.

Every major league club has some sort of operation in Latin America, as does Japan’s Hiroshima team.

Perez said one of his chief responsibilities will be acting as a liaison between the sport and Jose Daniel Calsada, the new Dominican commissioner of baseball, who oversees relations between Dominican players and major league baseball.

But first and foremost, he said, his purpose is to better enforce baseball’s rules.

“What has happened in the past [with early and invalidated signings] speaks for itself,” Perez said. “We want to make sure that we can guarantee that the laws are enforced here.”

Staff writer Mike DiGiovanna contributed to this story.