Nice article in today's NY Times about senior Dominican ball players, nice slide show on the webpage:
Not a Young Man?s Game
Alumni of Two Dominican Amateur Leagues Play Each September
By LOUIE LAZAR SEPT. 15, 2014
A bony, 73-year-old Dominican pitcher stood atop a mound at the northern edge of Manhattan, tossing curveballs and sliders to the rhythm of salsa music. In the batter?s box, a portly man with a white goatee, gnawing on a wad of tobacco, awaited the pitcher?s long, exaggerated delivery.
As the innings wore on, no one seemed discouraged that the fastballs lacked giddyap, that the wooden bats were devoid of pop or that the base runners, whose bellies protruded from their red-and-blue uniforms, were slow and unsteady afoot.
?I feel alive!? Andy Paulino, 73, said of taking the field on a recent Sunday afternoon at Inwood Hill Park. ?It?s like I?ve been born again!?
Each September since 1985, this old-timers? battle ? loosely translated from Spanish as the ?Game in Remembrance of Glories Past? ? has brought together men who played in two amateur leagues in the Dominican Republic during the 1950s and ?60s: the Liga del Cine and the Liga Ozama. The teams, whose jerseys bore those titles, also included veterans of professional leagues in the United States and Latin America.
But there is more to the tradition than an annual game. The game?s founder, Rafael Herrera, 77, a photojournalist who played in the Liga del Cine in the 1950s, presides over a committee of aging Spanish-speaking ballplayers who meet regularly in a Harlem basement to reminisce, talk about baseball and share in friendship.
On this Sunday, red, white and blue banners adorned the dugout fences, and about 250 fans, mostly players? relatives, sat on concrete bleachers behind a chain-link backstop decorated with the Dominican, Cuban, Puerto Rican and United States flags. Under a bright sun, players took big swings with worn bats and played long toss with ancient-looking mitts.
In right field, the Liga del Cine starting catcher and cleanup hitter ? a lean man with a white beard, dark wraparound sunglasses and tall red stirrups ? ran sprints. He was Johnny Mojica, who played in Ecuador, Panama and Aruba and in the minor leagues for the Chicago Cubs in the 1970s. He moved to Brooklyn and worked as a welder in a body shop but remained close to fellow ballplayers from the Dominican Republic who had also moved to New York.
He later moved to California but returned, he said, ?to see all my old friends.?
?We?re disappearing one by one,? he said.
Across the diamond, Carlos Baudre, 70, scooped up ground balls. ?I feel like my first years playing baseball, the same pride,? he said.
The Ozama and del Cine leagues were established in Santo Domingo in the late 1940s, during the military dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and at a time when professional baseball did not exist in the country. No Dominican-born player had yet appeared in the major leagues, and it would be decades before the island teemed with big-league scouts, development academies and money.
The Liga Ozama was named after a river that flows through the capital, and the Liga del Cine was made up of players who worked in movie theaters, Herrera said. Each had four teams, and they shared a stadium in Santo Domingo. Andr?s Marmolejos, who played in the Liga del Cine during the 1950s, remembered the ballpark as a festive place filled with passionate fans and live merengue music. Herrera said players drank rum in the dugouts.
By the 1970s, many of the players had resettled in New York, where they religiously followed Major League Baseball ? especially the Yankees ? and in the early 1980s they played together in a semiprofessional league in Central Park.
Herrera organized the first old-timers? game in 1985. Participants eventually included a few former major leaguers, like St. Louis Cardinals pitchers Santiago Guzman and Silvio Martinez. But most were former amateurs or professionals in the Dominican Republic or career minor leaguers.
To the players, many of whom worked blue-collar jobs in auto shops and factories, the game became a highlight of their year, even something sacred. In the late 1980s, said Marmolejos, the committee?s secretary, two dead players? ashes were scattered on the Inwood Park infield.
Herrera continually recruits new players by mail and phone and in person. ?The very, very old ones can?t run anymore, so I put in younger guys,? Herrera said, although by younger he meant men in their 50s and 60s.
Still, signs of the players? advanced age were evident as the game began. Infielders strained to bend over, outfielders covered virtually no ground, and base runners moved with the speed and grace of oversize mascots. Yet there were also flashes of youth: After outs, infielders whipped the ball around the diamond, sidearm and with gusto. Second basemen and shortstops connected on double-play exchanges involving nifty flips, barehanded snags and quick pivots.
El Cine was the superior team, scoring 10 runs in the first two innings, aided by two booted grounders and the muffed fielding of a pop fly by Ozama.
In the middle innings, Ozama had its chances. Once, with runners on base and morale building, an Ozama player hit a blooper to right. El Cine?s right fielder plodded forward while its first baseman backpedaled awkwardly; the ball fell to the grass between them. Sensing a rally, the crowd rose, but there was a problem: The hitter had barely made it out of the batter?s box and was thrown out by about 75 feet.
The games are planned during regular meetings in the Harlem basement, in the apartment of a building superintendent, Miguel Regalado, who played amateur baseball in the Dominican Republic. One evening last month, about 15 players gathered in his living room, where a Yankees game aired in Spanish and pictures and awards from past contests decorated the walls.
Later, over Dominican cake in another room down the hall, the men talked about life and baseball, about players who were sick or had recently died, about plays they had made in their youth. Herrera said some of the players? wives had died, and he likened the meetings to ?family gatherings.?
As this year?s game approached, Herrera visited ailing players in hospitals and at their homes. Last month, he dropped by the Washington Heights apartment of Walter James, a left-handed-hitting Dominican catcher and outfielder who played in Mexico, Venezuela and Nicaragua and who batted .314 in the minors more than a half-century ago.
Today, James, who gives his age as 80, lives alone and uses a walker; his apartment?s modest d?cor includes religious symbols and baseball artifacts. Herrera offered James a taxi ride to the Sunday game, but James, citing his aging knees, declined.
The game wound down without much drama ? Cine won, 12-1 ? although tempers flared briefly when El Cine tried to re-enter a pitcher, bringing both managers from their dugouts and requiring Herrera?s intervention. Baudre, Ozama?s 70-year-old third baseman, provided one last highlight when he dove to his right, snagged the ball off a short hop and tagged third to end a late Cine threat.
The crowd roared, and Baudre flashed a huge smile, raising both hands in jubilation. Players from both teams congratulated him.
?It reminds me of what I used to be,? Baudre said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/s...gion=pocket-region&WT.nav=pocket-region&_r=0#
Not a Young Man?s Game
Alumni of Two Dominican Amateur Leagues Play Each September
By LOUIE LAZAR SEPT. 15, 2014
A bony, 73-year-old Dominican pitcher stood atop a mound at the northern edge of Manhattan, tossing curveballs and sliders to the rhythm of salsa music. In the batter?s box, a portly man with a white goatee, gnawing on a wad of tobacco, awaited the pitcher?s long, exaggerated delivery.
As the innings wore on, no one seemed discouraged that the fastballs lacked giddyap, that the wooden bats were devoid of pop or that the base runners, whose bellies protruded from their red-and-blue uniforms, were slow and unsteady afoot.
?I feel alive!? Andy Paulino, 73, said of taking the field on a recent Sunday afternoon at Inwood Hill Park. ?It?s like I?ve been born again!?
Each September since 1985, this old-timers? battle ? loosely translated from Spanish as the ?Game in Remembrance of Glories Past? ? has brought together men who played in two amateur leagues in the Dominican Republic during the 1950s and ?60s: the Liga del Cine and the Liga Ozama. The teams, whose jerseys bore those titles, also included veterans of professional leagues in the United States and Latin America.
But there is more to the tradition than an annual game. The game?s founder, Rafael Herrera, 77, a photojournalist who played in the Liga del Cine in the 1950s, presides over a committee of aging Spanish-speaking ballplayers who meet regularly in a Harlem basement to reminisce, talk about baseball and share in friendship.
On this Sunday, red, white and blue banners adorned the dugout fences, and about 250 fans, mostly players? relatives, sat on concrete bleachers behind a chain-link backstop decorated with the Dominican, Cuban, Puerto Rican and United States flags. Under a bright sun, players took big swings with worn bats and played long toss with ancient-looking mitts.
In right field, the Liga del Cine starting catcher and cleanup hitter ? a lean man with a white beard, dark wraparound sunglasses and tall red stirrups ? ran sprints. He was Johnny Mojica, who played in Ecuador, Panama and Aruba and in the minor leagues for the Chicago Cubs in the 1970s. He moved to Brooklyn and worked as a welder in a body shop but remained close to fellow ballplayers from the Dominican Republic who had also moved to New York.
He later moved to California but returned, he said, ?to see all my old friends.?
?We?re disappearing one by one,? he said.
Across the diamond, Carlos Baudre, 70, scooped up ground balls. ?I feel like my first years playing baseball, the same pride,? he said.
The Ozama and del Cine leagues were established in Santo Domingo in the late 1940s, during the military dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and at a time when professional baseball did not exist in the country. No Dominican-born player had yet appeared in the major leagues, and it would be decades before the island teemed with big-league scouts, development academies and money.
The Liga Ozama was named after a river that flows through the capital, and the Liga del Cine was made up of players who worked in movie theaters, Herrera said. Each had four teams, and they shared a stadium in Santo Domingo. Andr?s Marmolejos, who played in the Liga del Cine during the 1950s, remembered the ballpark as a festive place filled with passionate fans and live merengue music. Herrera said players drank rum in the dugouts.
By the 1970s, many of the players had resettled in New York, where they religiously followed Major League Baseball ? especially the Yankees ? and in the early 1980s they played together in a semiprofessional league in Central Park.
Herrera organized the first old-timers? game in 1985. Participants eventually included a few former major leaguers, like St. Louis Cardinals pitchers Santiago Guzman and Silvio Martinez. But most were former amateurs or professionals in the Dominican Republic or career minor leaguers.
To the players, many of whom worked blue-collar jobs in auto shops and factories, the game became a highlight of their year, even something sacred. In the late 1980s, said Marmolejos, the committee?s secretary, two dead players? ashes were scattered on the Inwood Park infield.
Herrera continually recruits new players by mail and phone and in person. ?The very, very old ones can?t run anymore, so I put in younger guys,? Herrera said, although by younger he meant men in their 50s and 60s.
Still, signs of the players? advanced age were evident as the game began. Infielders strained to bend over, outfielders covered virtually no ground, and base runners moved with the speed and grace of oversize mascots. Yet there were also flashes of youth: After outs, infielders whipped the ball around the diamond, sidearm and with gusto. Second basemen and shortstops connected on double-play exchanges involving nifty flips, barehanded snags and quick pivots.
El Cine was the superior team, scoring 10 runs in the first two innings, aided by two booted grounders and the muffed fielding of a pop fly by Ozama.
In the middle innings, Ozama had its chances. Once, with runners on base and morale building, an Ozama player hit a blooper to right. El Cine?s right fielder plodded forward while its first baseman backpedaled awkwardly; the ball fell to the grass between them. Sensing a rally, the crowd rose, but there was a problem: The hitter had barely made it out of the batter?s box and was thrown out by about 75 feet.
The games are planned during regular meetings in the Harlem basement, in the apartment of a building superintendent, Miguel Regalado, who played amateur baseball in the Dominican Republic. One evening last month, about 15 players gathered in his living room, where a Yankees game aired in Spanish and pictures and awards from past contests decorated the walls.
Later, over Dominican cake in another room down the hall, the men talked about life and baseball, about players who were sick or had recently died, about plays they had made in their youth. Herrera said some of the players? wives had died, and he likened the meetings to ?family gatherings.?
As this year?s game approached, Herrera visited ailing players in hospitals and at their homes. Last month, he dropped by the Washington Heights apartment of Walter James, a left-handed-hitting Dominican catcher and outfielder who played in Mexico, Venezuela and Nicaragua and who batted .314 in the minors more than a half-century ago.
Today, James, who gives his age as 80, lives alone and uses a walker; his apartment?s modest d?cor includes religious symbols and baseball artifacts. Herrera offered James a taxi ride to the Sunday game, but James, citing his aging knees, declined.
The game wound down without much drama ? Cine won, 12-1 ? although tempers flared briefly when El Cine tried to re-enter a pitcher, bringing both managers from their dugouts and requiring Herrera?s intervention. Baudre, Ozama?s 70-year-old third baseman, provided one last highlight when he dove to his right, snagged the ball off a short hop and tagged third to end a late Cine threat.
The crowd roared, and Baudre flashed a huge smile, raising both hands in jubilation. Players from both teams congratulated him.
?It reminds me of what I used to be,? Baudre said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/15/s...gion=pocket-region&WT.nav=pocket-region&_r=0#
