During the Dialogo Libre program sponsored by Diario Libre, Moises Rojas Alou was asked about the formula that he used for the Dominican Republic to win the last World Baseball Classic (WBC) despite many stars declining to play. His answer: A team of technical people with the know-how to get the most out of the available resources and a group of players that took a cause to heart as a commitment to their country.
According to Rojas Alou, choosing Tony Pena as the manager was the best decision and he completed the job with the coaches that he got to support him. Rojas Alou said: “We had Tony, a manager and bench coach in the Major Leagues, in the US League, Juan Samuel, a coach in the National League, William Castro, a pitching and bullpen coach in the US League. A team of people that came prepared, that brought all of their books. When I contacted Tony, he already had all of the scouting reports of most of the players that were going to take part in the Classic, so that it was not just by chance, the truth is that everyone came prepared for this and from the first day that we were together in Tampa, I could feel the chemistry.”
Therefore, once he got Robinson Cano’s father Jose as a bullpen coach, the New York Yankee second baseman had a greater commitment. In the end, the big hitter was the Most Valuable Player of the series with a batting average of .469. “In the (first) practice, Tony had everyone speak out. Cano said at once: “Look here we got (sic) some who say we are or they say we are the ‘horses,’ but here everyone is equal, we hope that everyone puts in his grain of salt all the same,” and I think that when Robinson said these words, that was when it got started,” said Alou.