Building the Béisbol Brand

By JONATHAN MAHLER

On the June morning that I visited the Mets' Dominican Academia de Béisbol, a pair of perfect diamonds surrounded by stucco walls topped with barbed wire in the tiny town of Boca de Nigua, the Dominican Summer League had just begun. The Mets' prospects were playing the Detroit Tigers' prospects. One of the Mets' most promising young players on the island, a 17-year-old shortstop named Samuel Jiuz, was making his first start. As he took infield and batting practice, it was easy to see why the Mets are so high on Jiuz. He possesses what scouts call ''plus tools'' -- a strong arm, soft hands, speed and power -- as well as a ''good body.'' Lean and muscular, he appears in no danger of growing fat. Right now, he's listed at 6-foot-3 and 176 pounds, but with better nutrition and weight training, the Mets' senior scout for the Dominican Republic, Eddy Toledo, expects him to put on 25 pounds of muscle over the next few years. Scouts like to match a prospect with the major leaguer whom he most closely resembles; Toledo compares Jiuz to the former All-Star shortstop Tony Fernandez. Read more....

Ramirez Well Worth Keeping or Getting

By HARVEY ARATON

In the event the Red Sox masterminds Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein failed to notice, their baseball team awoke today as the defending World Series champion, in first place in the American League East and, as presently constituted, with Manny Ramirez, at worst a pick 'em choice between them and the pitching-starved Yankees this season to make the playoffs.

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He's straight representin'

By MIKE “MIGUEL” FORDE

Thirteeen years have trickled by since that fateful slide back to first base. Never has such an innocuous pick-off play been so life altering as the one John Bermudez experienced.

The play looked like any other. Bermudez took his lead off first base, the pitcher spun and fired to first, Bermudez dove back. As a centerfield leadoff man at Midwood High School, he had done it plenty of times before. But this time, Bermudez heard a pop.

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THE SON'S SHINING

By JOE CUNNINGHAM

New York Post, May 11, 2005

His dad was the first Latino Hall of Famer in Major League Baseball, and now Roberto Clemente Jr. is blazing a trail of his own — becoming the first Latino broadcaster on English-language sports radio in New York. (Read More.)

National League Notebook:
Activists Deliver Drug Message

Associated Press, Friday, April 15, 2005

Activists delivered a symbolic coffin to commissioner Bud Selig's office yesterday, urging Major League Baseball to do more to test Dominican prospects for performance-enhancing drugs.

"If they send a message to the amateur players that before they sign a contract they will be drug-tested, they will clean up the system almost immediately," said Fernando Mateo, who leads a group called Hispanics Across America. Full Story...

AMAZING GRACE

By Sandra Guzman (NY Post)

April 13, 2005 -- If the name or scent of a man’s cologne is any indication of his character or state of mind, then Mets ace pitcher Pedro Martinez is trying to tell the world something. He wears Open by French perfumery Roger and Gallet, which he describes as "fresh, clean and simple." And open is how he wants New York to be toward him. A peek into his life off the field shows a vastly different man than the one that fans have come to know and love — or loathe (yes, Yankee fans, that’s you.) Full story ...