Rookies believe they are invincible, but not all of them will reach the Major Leagues: Patraca
▲ Young baseball players during the opening of the Olmeca League season for 2024. Photo Pablo Ramos
Juan Manuel Vazquez
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, December 28, 2023, p. a10
A famous documentary from the 90s about the dreams of two young African-Americans who want to succeed in the NBA (Hoop Dreams, by Steve James, 1994), showed the harsh and cruel setback of the road to professional sports. He exhibited what is already known: not everyone arrives and failure is a ghost that threatens all the time.
Mexican Mariana Patraca, manager of International Baseball Operations and Development for Latin America with the Arizona Diamondbacks, knows first-hand the complex and difficult development faced by young people with dreams of succeeding in the massive sport of the United States, in this case the Major Leagues. Her experience as a scholarship student in that country led her to wonder what was happening to those masses of Latin American baseball players, just young people who left traditional communities and struggled to integrate into a different society and who signed with Major League teams.
Drastic change
A drastic change that could unbalance anyone. The thesis of that academic research was about the obstacles that Latinos face in joining this professional sports league.
Before the emergence of the American soccer league, the MLS, baseball was the only sport with a significant Latin American presence in that country, today with 236 Latinos registered in the Major Leagues. Mainly with players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Mexico, in that order.
When a developing boy signs with an MLB team, the first step is to join the academies they have in the Dominican Republic. It should be noted that the main baseball training centers for the league are located in that country, since there is also the second largest office of the organization after the main one, located in New York.
Today we have about 95 boys in training at the Diamondbacks academy in the Dominican Republic; Of those, only one or two percent will reach the Major Leagues, what happens to the rest? the Mexican manager asked herself when she began her major league experience. In fact, in eight years of working with D-backsthe Mexican has seen about 500 aspiring ballplayers pass by, of which only five reached the Big League.
The rookie believes he is invincible and that he will be a baseball player all his life. We must place them in reality, that it is better to be prepared and not settle for just the sporting part: first we detect the obstacles that have to do with the social integration of a person who migrates to a society different from his own. And also the lack of academic preparation, because they are little boys, and that prevented them from seeing that they are not only athletes and that not all of them will reach the Major Leagues. Therefore, we must give them support of a different nature for life, explains the Mexican.
▲ Mexican Mariana Patraca (above) knows firsthand the problems faced by ballplayers who dream of being major leaguers. Photo Pablo Ramos
Patraca considers that the first obstacle has to do with emotional tools, with what specialists call mental health. Also, with an idealized vision of what it means to sign with a team, without thinking about the long and complicated process to get a position in professional baseball.
There are seven levels to reach the Major Leagues. It starts in the academies in the Dominican Republic, then follows the Rookie level, in Florida or Arizona, class A, class A Strong, Class Double A, Triple A and seventh level would be the Major Leagues. There is no established pattern on the route to rise, that will depend on the pace and development of each player, if a starter is injured and that opens a door. The process usually takes seven years, but there are those who do it in five and those who take almost 10. There is no rule, Patraca comments and makes it obvious that the majority does not culminate at the zenith of that scale.
The Major Leagues are an organization that has evolved not only with respect to technology and the game itself, Patraca explains. They have learned that the baseball player, in addition to being an athlete, is an individual and that there is a responsibility in the face of that reality. The manager, through her own life and academic experience, has incorporated knowledge into the training of young people from Diamondbacks academies.
Discover more skills
Part of the project we have involves making them see that they are not only athletes and that not everyone is going to dedicate themselves to this profession or not at the level that they dream of. It is important that the boys do not interrupt their academic studies, that they also develop other skills that will allow them to integrate positively if they do not continue in baseball, he explains.
Remember the case of a young man who was very skilled in the hairdressing trade. They encouraged him to continue. Due to various circumstances he did not continue in baseball, but he developed the barber’s trade and today he is a successful hairdresser for Major League players.
It is important that when they arrive at an academy they are taught that even if they continue in baseball they must prepare for more things, in addition to sports, they can be computer courses, perfecting the English language, continuing their studies or developing trades, because not everything is playing field, explains Patraca; Some former players continue in baseball in other roles on the teams, not only in sports activities as coaches, others develop as scouts, specialists in video or technology applied to this profession, commentators in the media or even in office jobs.
2023-12-28 10:37:55
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