A couple moments

So, no-longer-at-all-hypothetical readers, as you all must have figured out by now, SMBA V is back in the states. The last few days of the trip had their share of interesting moments, and I'll get up their daily summary posts ASAP, but until then, here are a few other moments/factoids which I think you might enjoy that I never got a chance to put into earlier posts:

1) Although the presentation by Banco BHD was, as I said earlier, largely technical and boring, the presenter (whose name still elludes me) did mention one interesting tid-bit: Dominican baseball player's signing bonuses are tax-free. So when a guy signs for $4.25 million, he's actually getting the full amount, and not "just," say, $3 million or so. Of course, oftentimes a substantial cut of that goes to the player's buscone (more on that later) or corrupt asshats like Jim Bowden.

2) I'm not sure whether you're all familiar with this (I'm not sure how much attention, say, Sara McCune pays to Latin American baseball [Editor's note: Correction, I'm actually certain I know exactly how much attention she pays--none.), but one of the big issues in signing players from Latin America is identity fraud. Players can be signed if they're 16 1/2 years-old on July 2nd; all potential signess want big league clubs to believe that they're as close as possible to that age, as a player who is 16 years, 9 months old has a lot more "up-side" and "projectability" than a player with the exact same ability at 19 years-old.

In our meeting at the MLB offices in Santo Domingo we heard from their investigations department about the process of assuring a player is how old (or even who) he says he is; it's amazing the lengths that buscones (the local, non-MLB-affiliates scouts who develop young Dominican players, often taking them out of school at a very young age so they can better focus on baseball) and players will go to to ensure that their identity fraud is successful. The investigators talked about going into a town where the buscone had literally knocked on every door and told people what they were doing, and how if asked by the investigators they should say that Emilio was really Juan and is turning 17 next month and is certainly not already 19. Pretty crazy stuff.

Among the most common ways players make themselves younger is to switch birth certificates with a slightly younger brother. If there is no younger brother, though, the going rate for a birth certificate is between $20,000 and $40,000 (I think that number was in dollars, although it might have been in pesos). With signing bonuses now ranging into the mid-seven figures and the country's per capita gross national income at $3550, it's easy to see how this transaction could be beneficial to both sides.

3) If I were to title this section of the post it would be "Eli 1, Spanish language 0." On one of the first days of the trip it was very, very hot (in fact, on most days of the trip it was very, very hot). After having lunch at a nice little restaurant somewhere near our hotel, I was craving something cold for dessert. A common site on the streets in Santo Domingo are little Bon carts (Bon being a Dominican frozen desserts company), and it just so happened that one of them was in the square right outside the restaurant. My Spanish isn't the greatest, but I was able to dig deep enough into a corner of my mind that I haven't visited since at least high school to find the phrase "Quiero comprar algo" (I want to buy something). I'm pretty sure the man could tell that my Spanish was pretty limited, so instead of asking me which flavor I wanted he pulled out a couple different ice cream bars and asked me: "Chocolate? Vanilla?" What I really wanted was a strawberry popsicle. Strawberry--crap, how the hell do you say that? I dove again into the deepest corners of my mind and was able to come up with the word: "Fresa." 50 pesos changed hands (about $1.40), and I had myself a wonderfully delicious fresa popsicle.

4) One of the things I won't miss about the Dominican Republic is always paying the gringo price for everything. While in Najayo, the beachside bar next to the hotel actually had its prices painted on the side of its building and still charged us between 15 and 35 pesos extra per beer (how they decided who to overcharge the most, I'm not sure). The deals, though, were still pretty ok: between 100 and 120 pesos (with a 36:1 exchange rate) for a one liter Presidente is a deal not even matched by the two-dollar draft PBRs that are always available at San Diego's finest bar, the Bluefoot Bar and Lounge.

5) It was a gross oversight for me not to mention this earlier when I described the campesino lunch that freshly-picked bananas were also on the menu. We were all absolutely blown away by how good they were--I'm seriously worried that I'll never be able to enjoy a grocery store banana again.