Quiz question: which city produces more Major League Baseball players per capita than any other? New York? Philadelphia? Boston? Detroit? Nope, it's San Pedro de Macor?s in the Dominican Republic. In the US, a boy can't sign for a club until he's got a high-school diploma, normally when he's 18 or 19 years old. But America's scouts like them much younger than that, so they go to the Caribbean instead, where kids can drop out of school at 14.
Unreported World: Dominican Baseball Dreams (Channel 4) is a departure for this foreign-affairs strand, which normally reports from areas of conflict and danger. No blue flak jacket required this time ? but the story is powerful and shocking.
The trouble is, for every Julio Lugo (no, me neither) who makes it to the big time, there are 1,000 kids who don't, and who then have nothing to fall back on because they left school at 14. Like Jose Miguel, who was once a major-league prospect and offered contracts, but his greedy trainer held out for more, and Jose ended up with nothing.
Exactly the same now appears to be happening to Miguel's nephew, Patterson Segura, the main character in reporter Seyi Rhodes's film. Patterson, a talented and likable 16-year-old who can pitch a ball at 90mph, has a couple of offers at around the $40,000-50,000 mark. Which is fine by Patterson and his granny who raised him, but his trainer Jovanny says no, he wants more.
Rhodes asks Jovanny what happens to the ones who get left by the wayside. "Drugs ? because of the frustration," Jovanny says. "Alcohol, depression and madness." So take the 50 bloody grand, for God's sake, for Patterson's sake, I'm shouting at the telly. You're half the?problem.
On my preview copy, there's no postscript, no news of what happened to Patterson. Hopefully there is on the final version. And hopefully it's good news for Patterson ? not three strikes and he's out.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/nov/17/unreported-world-dominican-baseball-dreams-review
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