Friday (or the one in which Eli, late at night, asks a classmate to convince him that capitalism is good)

Friday was our last day in Santo Domingo and at the sketchy Hotel Europa (and it seriously was sketchy--some classmates ended up in a brothel for a minute or two [okay, maybe longer than that, but only due to being in shock, and not, umm, I guess this would be the perfect occasion to use the phrase "doing the Dominican"] after being led there by our bellhop one night when they said they were looking for a place to go out), and after our rooftop breakfast we all donned our Sunday best to go to the business district and meet with Major League Baseball's Dominican banking partner, Banco BHD; Jeff Cohen of USAID; Yancen Pujols, the sports editor of "El Carribe" and a well-known Dominican broadcaster; and Liliana Cruz of the Dominican office of the American Chamber of Commerce.

These meetings were certainly informative, although certainly very mainstream. Banco BHD's representative talked a lot about the real nuts and bolts of the process of distributing bonuses and paychecks to players, and how in the last few years it has all become automated, which they believe substantially reduces fraud (buscones, the talent scouts who discover and train players, were--and still are--famous for taking a very large cut of their signed players' bonus and earnings). They also talked a lot about educating players about budgeting and personal finance--obviously essential stuff, but also kind of a snorefest. Mr. Cohen talked about the process of forming a partnership with USAID, but to me the most interesting part of his presentation was when he whipped out a pie chart (which I wish I had a copy of) showing that of the US government's foreign aid, almost 60% goes to two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan (how I've commented on the US/Iraq situation twice already in a blog I'm writing about a trip to the Dominican Republic is beyond me).

Mr. Pujols (no relation to Albert) talked about his experiences in the industry, and told us that of the steroid users Barry Bonds is a jackass but that the Santo Domingo-born Manny Ramirez is a saint. I don't know that I would go as far as cannonizing the man, but I do sure miss him in Boston. Lastly, Liliana spoke some about partnering with businesses to do good work in the DR, but the most impressive thing about her presentation was that right in the middle the power went out (a pretty common occurence here) and although the room went absolutely pitch black she just kept right on truckin'; we all made kind of a ghasp/woah!-noise, but she didn't even miss a beat while talking.

After that, we were on our way out of town, so after a quick, authentically Dominican lunch at a pizza place and a less quick stop at a shopping center to pick up some essentials (Gatorade, shower sandals), we were off to Najayo and the Padres complex. Along the way, though, we were able to arrange a quick visit to a facility run by Jose Rijo, a guy who has had kind of a tough year. Although several teams used to rent the facility, now only the Tigers remain, and for obvious reasons. The fields were in nowhere nearly as good shape as at the Mets complex, the weight room was definitely several notches down, and the players' dorms had neither air conditioning nor internet access. When there had been more teams there as many as 40 players had shared a large suite at one time; while living there was clearly nicer than living in an impoverished neighborhood, it was also substantially less luxurious than the Mets facility. I asked our guide Danny (a Red Sox fan [!], and also a great guy independent of that) what a player would think about the difference between the two facilities, and he said that it might be a deal-breaker: if a player is offered less money by the Padres than the Tigers, he said, it's still quite possible that the better living accomodations and player development system would sway them to sign with the Pads. Not even a mention the awesomely old school, original Nintendo gaming system in the Tigers' players' hang-out lounge was enough to sway Danny from this opinion. (As a totally unrelated aside, it's worth noting that the ride to this facility was the ocassion of an absolutely epic, motion sickiness-inducingly-loud discussion about the merits of a 162 game baseball season [and regardless of whether the others involved in the argument agreed with me, those of you who know me will be unsurprised to hear that I know that my side was right.])

Arriving in Najayo was absolutely wonderful; we first dropped the girls off at their beach-side (beach-side? Hell no! Beach on! [RIP Mitch Hedberg]) hotel, and hung around for a bit at the bar next door while they checked in before we headed to the Pads complex for dinner. Up the road just a little ways was an absolutely massive house with a for sale sign. It turns out that that used to be one of the houses of the former dictator Trujillo (who those of you who are taking good notes will remember from a previous post), and it has quite the history: when Trujillo was assassinated his son was living in France; upon hearing of his father's assassination his son came back and tracked down the assassins, who he then kept captive in that house while he first tortured and then killed them. No wonder they're having a hard time selling it. On a happier note, though, Trujillo wanted to have a nice beach near his house, and the one in Najayo is naturally very rocky and unsafe. Naturally, being a dictator, he just went and had some folks dig up all the rocks from a pretty large section of beach, and now that's the nicest section of La Playa Najayo.

After a couple absolutely necessary decompression Presidentes, we were on our way to the Pads facility. While everyone claims that it's the jewel of the DR, I'm not actually sure that the facility is nicer than the Mets'; the one thing that might set it way apart for a player is the fact that the dorms at the Pads' facility are only doubles, while the Mets put the players in quads. Regardless, both facilities are ridiculously nice; we had dinner in the dining hall (which they kept open for us), and a couple of us had a great talk with Cesar, who is the facility manager and also had major input in designing the place. He said that of everything in the facility there were two things he would change: he would put another bathroom between two of the playing fields and he wishes they had a track for conditioning so they didn't have to do it on the field.

When the guys went and dropped our bags off in the dorms after dinner we heard some hollering from down the hall. "What?" one of our guys asked to the Latin American prospects who were hollering out the door of their dorm room. "The girls! Where are the girls?" he hollered back. It's good to see that he's learning some good, useful English in the classes here at the academy.

Later that night we took a bus down to the beach. There, in a somewhat drunken state (liter-sized Presidentes were only 125 pesos, ore about $3.50), I scribbled a note that I found in my workbook the next morning: "What [triple-underlined] IS the role of business? Is there an inherent issue w/ capitalism?" I don't remember writing this, but I do remember a conversation I must have had afterward, where David Carter, our only semi-elected class Prime Minister (he's Canadian, so he's not the President--although none of that matters here since we've all decided he's out of his jurisdiction), our class President, when I asked him to tell my why I should believe that we are doing is actually going to be good responded quite intelligently: "I don't know that I can. But here's what I do know: for all of the problems that it may cause, in order for us to be able to help these people--to improve their lives--we need to help give them the skills and opportunity to make money. Period."

I don't know that I'm a 100% convert yet, but while I'm here, I'm at least willing to try to fool myself that I'm all in. After all, you don't half-ass your way to even a partial solution of really tough problems. And I feel like this is another moment where I need to remember that there are times it's essential, no matter how wonderful theory and al sorts of high fallutin' intellectual ideals might be, to just get over myself. But, even though I'm in an MBA program, you had better believe that if I can put on any lefty, socialist, co-op, dirty stinkin' commie spin on anything I do propose we do here to try to help these people help themselves, I most certainly will. It will be interesting even to myself to see how this internal conflict plays out.