A Latino field of dreams
COMMENTARY
El Dairio La Prensa
Wed., Jan. 19, 2005

Omar Minaya, Major League Baseball’s first Latino
general manager, is making the Mets an exciting team
for Latinos and for other ballplayers, not to mention
the fans.

Minaya has been pursuing Latino ballplayers for his
team with great strategy and determination, and
without apology. Great strategy because landing
pitcher Pedro Martínez first, fresh from his World
Series victory with the Boston Red Sox, enables Minaya
to lure other star players to a team that has been
losing for years.

The fast and powerful Carlos Beltran signed with the
team last week. Beltran said he took the Mets
seriously because they had Martínez.

Now the team is trying to lure first baseman Carlos
Delgado, a friend of Beltran. And so it goes. Minaya
and Martínez are Dominican, and Delgado and Beltran
are Puerto Rican, to the delight of this city’s large
Latino population. With the No. 7 train traveling
through the Latino neighborhoods along Roosevelt
Avenue on its way to Shea Stadium, the Mets are likely
to pick up fans from the rest of Latin America, too.

It’s good for the game. Minaya’s moves have helped
distract us from the sad issue of steroid abuse among
baseball players.

It’s good for business. The Mets are starting their
own cable network next year, and they need to give the
fans at home and in the ballpark something to watch.

There are many talented Latino ballplayers in the
Major Leagues today, and many others have gone before
them. The late, great Roberto Clemente is widely
recognized, but there have been so many others – Juan
Marichal, Luis Tiant, and Orlando Cepeda, to name just
a few. We pray that the prominence of Latino players
in the Major Leagues, and the presence of a Latino
manager at last, will pique interest in those who came
before, and paved the way for today’s players, so that
they too receive the recognition they so deserve.


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Anthony Salazar
salazar8017@...



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