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Kyle Gutowski
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Every year there is no country outside the United States that produces more baseball talent than the Dominican Republic. Many Dominicans were born with the game in their blood and from the time they are able to walk, many Dominican youth eat, sleep, and breathe baseball. While the system in... Continue reading
"What comes up, must come down, spinning wheels must keep a-turning ‘round” –Blood Sweat and Tears. There has been some controversy amongst the drop in African American players in Major League Baseball. What we can learn from the band mentioned above is that in the end, everything will balance out.... Continue reading
“Sugar” is an amazing film covering almost all of the topics we haave learned about in one of our classes about the Dominican pipeline system here. The film started with the main character in the academies in the Dominican Republic. Although it skipped his adventures of street baseball and little... Continue reading
Our visit to Santiago was an amazing personal experience. Things did not workout so that we were able to meet and talk with a representative of the Aguilas. Instead we took a small tour of the stadium and learned a little bit about the history of the team. What I... Continue reading
Upon visiting the Mets academy, we were all extremely impressed. There was not one thing that did not impress me. The facilities and buildings were amazing, the workout room was well kept and the English classes were revolutionary relative to other academies. All 30 MLB teams have academies here for... Continue reading
Interning at the MLB offices in Santo Domingo I have met some extremely friendly coworkers. One by the name of Jean Carlos told me, “Kyle, I got to take you to (I do not recall the place). Americans travel to the Dominican Republic and only stay in Santo Domingo and... Continue reading
Our class visit to Estadio Quisqueya was enlightening. We learned about the rich history of the ballpark, of the Dominican Winter League, and the teams that play there. The ballpark is an architectural masterpiece in terms of structure, allowing for an open view for all seats. Many future ballparks that... Continue reading
The title is not my beliefs, but the beliefs of many in the country of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is an impoverished country with a great deal of unemployment. For many boys and their families, baseball provides hope to escape this poverty. Baseball for them is a distant... Continue reading
For hundreds of years people have been propagandized into believing skin tone makes a difference in life, difference in job status, difference in societal purpose and difference in beauty. Almost anything and everything leads to white/ lighter skin and strays away from black/ darker skin. Why is this? Why can... Continue reading
Baseball is considered the American pastime, but is played all over the world. There are premier baseball leagues just south of the United States in Central America, and across the Pacific Ocean in Japan and other parts of Asia. Baseball may have originated in the United States but the sport’s... Continue reading
The world today is a constant system of moving parts. There is a saying that roughly goes, “if we do not change with the world, the world will soon forget us.” The same is true with baseball. Baseball is not the same game it was over 100 years ago. Due... Continue reading
Throughout the movie, “Pelotero,” I continually received a bad taste in my mouth. This bad taste was layered and before the most recent taste could fully go away, I would receive another bad taste from seeing or hearing another sickening thing. There are numerous examples on why this occurred. The... Continue reading
In the words of the boss man, Bruce Springsteen, “they’ll pass you by, glory days.” Today we met with two former highly ranked prospects whose baseball careers where unfortunately cut short. One player, Leo Rodriguez played against the soon to be Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez, and was signed a... Continue reading
Vladimir Guerrero was one of the most feared hitters in all of baseball. He was notorious for his ability to destroy pitches well outside the strike zone. Some of his accolades include a career batting average of .318, with 2,490 hits and a total of 449 home runs. Vladimir Guerrero... Continue reading
Many people regard sports as a place where kids can be kids and forget about the world for a while. The same can be true for adults. For many Latin American players in the 20th century, playing baseball was the one consistency between the two different worlds of Cuba and... Continue reading
In just under our two weeks here I have learned an incredible amount about the history of baseball and the pipeline system many Dominicans take. We have learned about the pipeline in class and then had first hand experiences with the pipeline outside of class visiting multiple little leagues, professional... Continue reading
Our visit to the MLB offices had me in awe. Touring the cubicles, meeting rooms, and baseball artwork, I had to first take it all in before I could engage in why we were there. We were fortunate enough to talk about what the employees do at the offices: Certify... Continue reading
One refreshing aspect in meeting others is humility. Ruddy Ramirez exemplified that in our visit with his little league. Ramirez talked to us about the way he runs his system there. The humility of Ramirez is evident when he admits he does not know everything. Many people in this world... Continue reading
The visit to la zona colonial was a more impersonal visit. This could have been due to the fact it was Tian showing us around and telling us about the rich history of Santo Domingo. Honestly, where my previous two site reflection papers flowed and I easily took something really... Continue reading
From the readings about the sugar cane fields and the previous experiences I took something away from this excursion that I did not see coming. Pride. But not pride in baseball and the countless number of ballplayers Consuelo has produced, pride in schooling and education. At Consuelo we met the... Continue reading
After visiting both the Daniel Portorreal little league and the Astros Academy it reminded me of an essay I had to write for the SAT my junior year of high school. At what point do we relinquish so much of our personal freedoms to the government for protection that we,... Continue reading
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Jun 23, 2015