Baseball in San Pedro de Macoris

Although several communities in the United States are noted for producing significant numbers of American baseball stars, none can match the community of San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. Over the past three decades, dozens of outstanding American baseball players have come from this relatively small port city in the southeastern part of Hispaniola. Why has San Pedro de Macoris produced such an impressive roster of major-leaguers? And why do so many, including George Bell, Alfredo Griffin, and Juan Samuel, have English surnames?

San Pedro de Macoris is the primary sugar port of the Dominican Republic (Figure B6-1). During the late nineteenth century, the Dominican sugar industry was established in order to produce processed sugar to be sold in the United States. The cutting and processing of sugarcane is hot, dirty, dangerous, and low-paying work. In order to find a labor supply, Dominican sugar executives turned to the neighboring Caribbean islands to find workers. Migrant workers from St. Martin. Tortola. Montserrat. St. Kitts. Nevis, and other British island colonies moved to San Pedro de Macoris.

Figure B6-1 San Pedro de Macoris. San Pedro de Macoris is the home of many American baseball stars from the Dominican Republic. Many San Pedro natives who have starred for American baseball teams are descendants of people who moved to the Dominican Republic from nearby British island colonies to work in the sugar industry

By the early twentieth century, thousands of people had moved from the British island colonies to San Pedro. They were called "Cocolos"—a corruption of the name of the island of Tortola. Many Cocolos lived in squalid company-owned shacks and worked long hours for meager wages. The English-speaking Cocolos became a recognized ethnic minority within the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic.

The Cocolos brought English traditions with them to their new home, including the game of cricket. Several cricket clubs were organized, and cricket became a means by which the Cocolos could retain their ethnic identity within an alien culture. During the early twentieth century, however, their Dominican-born descendants began to play baseball. Baseball had recently been introduced by American military personnel stationed in the Dominican Republic. By the 1930s, professional baseball had been established. A team composed of Cocolos won the national championship of the Dominican Republic in 1937. The community's focus shifted from competition between local club teams to competition between the Cocolos of San Pedro and native Dominicans from other parts of the country. Baseball became an expression of Cocolo ethnic identity.

Today, baseball retains its role in integrating the Cocolo community. American major-league scouts are well aware of the high quality of play in the Dominican Republic, and many outstanding players have been signed to contracts to play in the United States.

The Olympic Games. The Olympic Games have gained recognition as theworld's premier international sports competition. Athletesfrom countries throughout the world compete in dozensof popular individual and team sports. An athlete whowins a gold medal in Olympic competition is usually recognized internationally as the best performer in his or hersport.

The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years in the Greek city-state of Olympia starting in 776 b.c. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a French sportsman and educator, laid the groundwork for the modern Olympic Games, and was instrumental in establishing the International Olympic Committee in 1894. As we described at the start of this chapter, the first modern Olympic games were held in Athens in 1896. The Olympic movement has since diffused throughout the world, and host cities have been located in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia. (Figure 6-15).

Figure 6-15 The Diffusion of the Olympic Games. Twelve countries participated in the first modern Olympic games in 1 896. By 1992 over 160 countries had sent athletes to the Olympic competitions. The diffusion of the Olympic movement reflects the diffusion of Western culture, the end of colonialism, and the gulf between developed and less developed countries

Officially, the Olympic movement is apolitical. The Olympic flag and the opening and closing ceremonies for the games are intended to symbolize world peace. Yet politics has played a major role in many Olympic Games. Scheduled Olympic competitions in 1916, 1940, and 1944 were canceled because of hostilities associated with World Wars I and II. In 1972 Arab guerilla terrorists killed eleven Israeli athletes participating in the Olympic Games at Munich, West Germany. As a political response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the United States and several of its allies boycotted the 1980 summer games in Moscow. Four years later, the Soviet Union and many of its satellites and allies withdrew from the Los Angeles summer games.