Baseball: the insane tragedy and the majesty of being/Béisbol: la tragedia del loco y la majestad de ser

I like to think of my adventure here as a version of the hero's journey. I've brought that analogy up before here. Sunday night I achieved the step called "atonement with the father." In monomyth analysis, the atonement of the father is when the hero confronts and is initiated by the person or thing that holds the ultimate power in his/her life. It's the central point of the hero's journey. Everything has led up to it and everything thereafter will be directly influenced by it. Most often this step concerns the hero meeting a human male figure, but it can be any gender or even any entity, not just a person.

Naturally, my atonement step was meeting baseball here. I went to my house of worship for my religious experience: taking in a Dominican League baseball game at Estadio Quisqueya.

Here is the photo album from the day

And the prettiest picture of the day:

I went to see Licey and Escogido play. They are the two teams from Santo Domingo and they share the stadium. That made my game crazier than I could have imagined. There was a home team in name only. Escogido was the home team for the day, meaning they had last ups. I saw red for Escogido and blue for Licey in equal amounts around the stadium. Cheers were equally loud for both teams.

Dominican baseball is the same sport I know on the field. Off the field, I was treated to a different experience. The entire stadium was louder than most games I've been to in the States. Only the two major games I attended in 2010 were louder: the 2010 NL West clincher on October 3, and Game 2 of the World Series, both in San Francisco. The fans had horns and noisemakers, plus there was a small marching band with thundering drums and blaring brass playing tunes for Escogido. Every play had the fans waving their flags, red and blue, and blaring their horns.

I'm a veteran of minor league baseball, so I'm used to the gimmicky between innings entertainment featured in minor league games. They have that here too, in the form of a cheerleading/dance team, wacky mascot antics, and a parade by the marching band. The dancers are Venezuelan and Colombian models who fire T-shirt guns into the crowd, dance on the dugout roof, and ride around the warning track in a classic car with red Escogido flags. Every team has dancers and they all wear skimpy outfits.

The mascots had an epic war the entire game. Escogido's mascot, a lion, had several costume changes throughout the night. He wore a devil costume for Halloween and an umpire's getup to make fun of the umpires. When he challenged Licey's mascot, a tiger, to a dance-off and won, the tiger responded by bringing a stroller out of the dugout with a plush lion toy in it, and pushed the stroller around to make fun of the lion.

I can't go anywhere without talking about the food. The ballpark featured several national brands (Presidente beer, Pizzarelli pizza) and some international brands (Chili's margarita stand). Vendors walked around selling a variety of food: pizza, hot dogs, empanandas, Pringles, and the best vendor of them all would fetch a cold beer for you and bring it to your seat. All you had to do was ask. I was told they have vendors serving people in their seats to eliminate people walking around during the games. Brilliant, if you ask me. I got a beer for 80 pesos, a slice of pizza for 95 pesos, and a hat for 125 pesos. All in all, about US$8, and all of it was top notch. Compare a similar day at the yard in the US; $6-10 for a beer (Budweiser on the cheap end, good beer like Anchor Steam on the expensive end), pizza for $7-10 (quality widely ranging from crappy to mediocre), and a hat for $15-30 (fitted caps run more). On top of your ticket, that can be a pricey day.

I had a hard time choosing a hat to buy. There were several stands set up outside the ballpark with hats from all the teams around the league. I decided to wait until I got inside to check out the team stores. Licey and Escogido had one store each. I didn't find anything I liked for Escogido--their fitted caps were either 6 3/4 or 7 1/4, and my size is 6 7/8. I have a rare size I know. But it's possible to find it. I have several 6 7/8 fitted caps. None of the adjustable hats looked good to me. So I went to the Licey store and realized how limited my choices were there too. Licey is blue. Dodger blue. I can't have a hat in any shade of blue that isn't San Jose State, and I especially can't wear anything blue with my Giants gear. I wore my Juan Marichal shirt to the game. No way in hell would I wear a blue hat with that.

I found an all black Licey adjustable cap that fit me well and looks great, so I bought it. I think it's a kids size, because it's really small. But it fits great so I'm happy with my purchase.

We had an hour long rain delay after clouds quickly swept in. It rained hard for about 20 minutes and the rest of the time the grounds crew worked on the field to get it ready for baseball. This keeps up my streak of rain delays at every ballpark I visit outside of San Francisco. I went to Coors Field in Colorado in 2006 and it rained. Biblical downpour thunder and lightning rain. I went to Comerica Park in 2008 and it rained.

Once the rain left and the players could begin their warmups, I saw Brandon Belt come out of the Leones dugout. Belt plays first base (not outfield. Do you hear me, Giants? NOT outfield) in the Giants system and I've interviewed him a few times for my various reporting jobs in the US. I was excited to see him play. I find it hard to get excited about what I see on the field because I spend so much of my time working around baseball. I wouldn't call it boredom, just getting used to what's there. I don't get starstruck easily, I should say.

But I bounced in my seat to see Belt swing a bat in the on deck circle. I felt a link to what I do in the States to what I'm doing here. I was initiated. Dominican baseball was no longer this cloudy subject I had no real picture of. It became real for me at that moment.

I had a flash of a moment buried in my past last night, too. Years ago, I sat in the arcade section of AT&T Park with some friends and watched the Cardinals and Giants play on a foggy July evening. Next to me was a painfully cute Cardinals fan who tried flirting with me the whole night. He asked me questions about my scorecards, about the field, about the teams and I basically gave him the ice queen act. I didn't realize he was trying to get with me until my friend brought it up on the car ride home.

Sunday night, the cute Escogido fan next to me asked me why I was writing in my notebook. He asked my why I was rooting for Licey. He asked me a lot of things I didn't understand. I tried my best to engage him in conversation.

Naturally, when I was as single as they come and dying for a baseball fan boyfriend, I act like a buffoon. I'm with the love of my life now (baseball and Sam) and I become warm and loquacious. Que malo.

I value my first game outside the US for several reasons, but the biggest one for me is having the chance to go to a game as a fan. I don't get to attend many games just to watch them. Most of the time I'm working: taking notes, keeping score, scouting, watching radar guns, shooting the shit with scouts. When I went to the key games for the 2010 San Francisco Giants, I was on edge the whole time because those games meant something. While last night's game meant the world to me, it wasn't watching the team I gave my life to. It wasn't work. I was able to kick back with a beer and chat and take in the most rewarding experience of my life.

Joseph Campbell, who coined the term "monomyth" offered this explanation of atonement of the father:

The problem of the hero going to meet the father is to open his soul beyond terror to such a degree that he will be ripe to understand how the sickening and insane tragedies of this vast and ruthless cosmos are completely validated in the majesty of Being. The hero transcends life with its peculiar blind spot and for a moment rises to a glimpse of the source. He beholds the face of the father, understands—and the two are atoned.

I opened my soul by submitting to the Dominican Republic's definition of baseball in all its insane tragedies. And still it's as beautiful to me as it ever was. It is the majesty of being.

Baseball and I are atoned.

Revolution/Revolucion

I am sitting on my balcony tonight, long after the sun has gone down. The only lights here are the street lamps, that are far below my view. I found there's enough room out here for one chair and I was in a sentimental mood, ripe for a heavy duty reflection period on a pleasant evening. You would be too if you had consistent mid 80s weather the week before Halloween like I do.

I passed the halfway mark of my time here this weekend. It doesn't quite balance out to 15 weeks here, but October 23 was basically the division point for me. I've faced significant strife in my personal life outside of my struggles with assimilating and learning Spanish and I allowed the negativity from that to poison the first seven weeks of my time here. I also gave into fear and spent my time inside my apartment instead of going out and trying to live.

I'm sitting on my balcony tonight to take in the beauty of a city that I fell in love with before I even truly knew the city. I have about seven weeks left here. I will not repeat the same mistakes of the first half of my time here. I spent that time wishing for the day when I could go home and wanting the days to go by faster.

I can see and feel the changes in my life, outlook, and attitude that resulted from coming here. For years I felt like my life in the States was tedious and boring. I yearned for a change. I wanted a wild adventure or a sweeping revolution to take over my life. I was ready for it. I just didn't know or expect it, nor did I know or expect how to handle the revolution.

I dragged the chair out here after weeks of thinking about doing it because I realized that I don't have much time left here. I'm not going to waste time thinking of how I wasted my previous days here. I'm not going to allow regret to take hold of me, either. The best way to do that is to take every day as it is given to me: gifts from a country and a culture that loves me as much as I love it. I came here begging the Dominican Republic to teach me its secrets and stories and the country and the people have responded by putting me at ease with Spanish and by giving me the best it has to offer.

I am living the revolution I prayed for. I can't return to the United States as the person I was when I left. I have exactly what I asked for, even if it feels completely different and not at all what I expected. It's terrifying to contemplate that but it's the good kind of fear, the kind that motivates and inspires.

I still want to return to my life in the States. I miss the people and things I left behind there. But I want to make each day here worthy of the revolution.

I made a promise to myself to go out and try something I haven't done or haven't tried by myself this week. Simple things like going to the colmado for a cold drink or going for a walk on a street I haven't been to. Talking to people in Spanish and not relying on English. Stuff like that.

Like everything else in life, I started with the best intentions. A sore foot from my beach trip (which will be featured in a future post) and a crapload of work due for school, my internship, and some other projects (again, forthcoming in a future post) derailed those plans for Monday and Tuesday.

The inspiration behind the week of new things was simple. I went to pay my phone bill on Saturday after my current events midterm, all by myself for the first time. I usually have my roommate Indhira with me to translate or help. I didn't get every word correct, but I spoke well enough to make myself understood and I made small talk. Very small talk. The girl at the phone counter said "¿tienes calor?" (is it hot?) to me and I responded "tan calor." (it's so hot) Then she told me "tengo frio" (it's cold) because of the air conditioner in the building.

I felt so good after that success that I went to McDonald's (shut up, it's good and cheap, two things I value here) and ordered lunch by myself, again successfully. While I ate my food, I saw an older lady who could have been my grandmother. She wore a smart bright blue pantsuit and every accessory coordinated perfectly: blue bag, blue shoes, blue jewelry. She even wore her hair in the same beehive style as my grandmother's signature look. I almost started crying in the McDonald's because I felt like she was there with me even for a minute. She would be so damn proud of me here doing this insane life-changing shit and I miss having the chance to tell her about what I'm doing here. I felt like I had that connection to her, however brief it was.

Then her hot grandson joined her at the table and I was snapped out of that reverie. The point of that vignette is that I would have missed that small but significant sign from the universe that made me believe what I am doing here is right and good, if I hadn't had the balls to go out and fail at Spanish and learn and try. It took balls just to come here. The revolution has begun. I have the balls to see it through and win the ultimate victory: a new, awesome version of myself.

I did a good job of making this balcony evening and my outpouring of emotions sound gorgeous, romantic, and empowering. Then a giant moth attacked me on the balcony. I suppose the insects are staging their own revolution.

The current state of currency/El estado actual de moneda

This post is about money. Not about how I have very little money, or what I do with said money. I'm talking about the aesthetic qualities of Dominican currency.

One day last week I saw a 2000 peso note for the first time since I arrived. It had two dudes on the front, one named Emilio Prud'homme. I didn't think much of it other than "hm, he might be Haitian/French" as Hispaniola was once a French nation.

Today in history class, his name came up again and I learned he's one of the authors of the Dominican national anthem, Quisqueyanos valientes. I looked at the bills I have in my cash stash in my room to see if I could place the other Dominican national heroes on the bills, and I know who most of them are.

It got me thinking about American currency and which famous Americans are on our bank notes and coins. Unlike US currency, Dominican bills and coins have national heroes other than presidents. I don't know a lot about the famous Dominicans on peso notes and coins. I am learning about them.

It made me ask: how many Americans really know about the men (and women) on our currency?

I did a quick blurb on each piece of common US currency with facts I recall from history classes and stuff I found via Google. Before I get to that, I want to point out that many of our national heroes have streets named after them in the DR; Avenida Lincoln, Washington, etc. They're just as important as Simon Bolivar (liberator of Latin American nations from Spain) and Maximo Gomez (Dominican born in Bani but general in the Cuban army and helped Cuba gain independence).

Here's what I can tell you about the guys featured on American money, in a nutshell.

$1: George Washington. The father of our country, brilliant military strategist, destroyer of cherry trees. The reverse side has the Great Seal of the United States.

$2: Thomas Jefferson. Purveyor of black women, writer (author of the Declaration of Independence), philosopher, founder of the University of Virginia, imperialist president who acquired tons of land via the Louisiana Purchase and commissioning the Lewis and Clark expedition. The reverse is an artistic depiction of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The original painting us hanging in the US Capitol Rotunda.

$5: Abraham Lincoln. Shot in the head. Morbid. Before that he was the president during one of the most challenging times for the country. He emancipated slaves and modernized economics and finance in the country. A self-made man and main character of Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter a novel that came out last year with a movie set for a 2012 release. Beat that, George Washington! The reverse side of the bill has the Lincoln Memorial.

$10: Alex Hamilton. A founder of US, born and raised in West Indies--bet you didn't know that! He was born Nevis, when the current federation of St. Kitts and Nevis was part of the British West Indies. He was also the first US Secretary of the Treasury. The reverse side is the US Treasury building.

$20: Andrew Jackson. Father of the Democratic party, supporter of slavery and relocation of indigenous American people, managed to pay off the national debt in 1835--the only time that's ever happened in US history--but only two years later a depression came along and wrecked the economy anew. He was also against the electoral college (good man). The reverse side is the White House.

$50: Ulysses S. Grant. Commander of the Union army during the Civil War, crusader for civil rights for African Americans and Native Americans, passed the 15th Amendment (prohibiting the government from denying a citizen's right to vote based on the citizen's race, color, or previous condition of servitude), tried to annex Hispaniola in the 1870s but failed, survived quite a few political scandals during this presidency. The reverse side is the US Capitol.

$100: Ben Franklin. True renaissance man who liked beer, physics, satire, and turkey. A working-class man with musical talents, journalism experience, and a knack for foreign diplomacy. Probably one of my favorite American heroes. The reverse side of this bill has Independence Hall, a building in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and adopted.

American coins have several repeats from the bank notes (Jefferson on the nickel, Washington on the quarter, Lincoln on the penny). Basically the only widely used coin that doesn't feature a bank note figure is the dime, Franklin Delano Roosevelt coin. FDR was a badass. He gets the smallest coin in size. Meh.

The reverse side of the coins change so much that I won't even bother analyzing them. Plus we had the 50 State quarters thing for a while and that was a gimmick at best.

The rest of the US coins are rarely used and annoying. I used to work as a cashier and I would dread half dollars and gold dollars. There aren't spaces for those in the till drawers and I was always pushed to give them out in change to customers. The customers didn't want them and be rude to me because of it. I really don't care who's on those. Sorry, JFK, Susan B. Anthony, Sacagawea, and Statue of Liberty.

Now for the Dominican currency. With pictures! As you will see here, the reverse sides of the Dominican notes are much more interesting than those of the US bank notes.

20 pesos: Gregorio Luperón/National Pantheon

Luperón was a military and state leader in the Dominican Restoration War after Spanish annexation in 1863. He was 22 years old when he took up the fight against Spain and fled briefly to the US after he was arrested for his dissidence. His initial efforts against Spain were unsuccessful but he regrouped and led his forces again, which prevailed in 1865. Since then, the DR has been an independent country. The reverse side shows the National Pantheon, a mausoleum which holds the bodies of Dominican national heroes, including several of the men on the larger Dominican bills. Luperón is buried there. The pantheon was renovated in the 1950s by order of Rafael Trujillo, Dominican history's greatest monster.

50 pesos: Catedral de Santa María de la Encarnación de Santo Domingo/Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia

El cathedral was the first cathedral built in the New World. I posted pictures of it from my Zona Colonial post back in September. The reverse side has a picture of La Basílica is a very important church in the eastern part of the country, also known as La Basílica de Higüey.

100 pesos: Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, Juan Pablo Duarte y Matías Ramón Mella/Puerta del Conde

Sánchez, Duarte, and Mella. Think Jefferson, Washington, and John Adams. These three dudes are the founding fathers of the Dominican Republic. All three were leaders of the 1844 Dominican War of Independence from Haiti, a 22 year war that eventually broke the DR free from Haitian invasion. The three are buried together at Altar de la Patria in Santo Domingo. They were known as Los Trinitarios. To write about each of their contributions to Dominican history and national identity would require a book, but know that Duarte has a mountain named after him--Pico Duarte, the highest point in the DR. On the reverse side of the bill is La Puerta del Conde (the count's gate), where the three are buried.

200 pesos: Hermanas Mirabal/Monumento a las Hermanas Mirabal

Las Hermanas Mirabal were four Dominican sisters who strongly opposed Trujillo's regime in the 1950s and 1960s. Three of the sisters were assassinated, and the killers are still unknown today. Two of the sisters were arrested and tortured and three of their husbands faced similar fates. The second youngest sister Minerva became a lawyer and was the de facto leader, taking extreme action after experiencing sexual harassment and general asshattery from Trujillo himself. The second oldest sister Dede is alive today and established the Museo Hermanas Mirabal in the sisters' hometown of Salcedo. The sisters' lives have been subjects of several books and films, including the most famous In the Time of Butterflies. The reverse side is of course the monument for the sisters in Salcedo. These women were badasses in a time when women weren't allowed to be badasses, but also during a time when it was absolutely necessary for them to do so. I like them.

500 pesos: Salomé Ureña y Pedro Henríquez Ureña/Banco Central de la República Dominicana

Salomé was a poet and crusader for the education of women in the DR in the mid 1800s--another woman who was a badass. In the 1880s she opened a school for higher education of women, which produced female teachers, a groundbreaking thing for the country. She had four children who all became respected writers and artists, one being Pedro. Pedro wrote a ton of important works in Dominican literature and was a strong proponent of Hispanic-American cultural values. The national library is named after him, and the street I have to cross every day to go to classes at UNIBE is also named after him. The reverse side of the bill has an image of the central bank of the country. Better respect where the money comes from.

1000 pesos: Palacio Nacional/Alcázar de Colón

Two buildings on the same bill. El Palacio  houses the offices of the executive branch (president and vice president) of the DR. Unlike the White House, the president and VP don't live there. It was built in 1944-the centennial of DR's independence from Haiti.  Alcázar de Colón is the oldest residence in the Americas and is part of the Colonial Zone World Heritage site. It is a museum that houses the Caribbean's most important works of late European Renaissance and medieval works of art. It was built in 1509 under Diego Colón (Christopher Columbus' son).

Fun fact: most of the ATMs here dispense money in 500 and 1000 notes.

2000 pesos: Emilio Prud'homme y José Rufino Reyes Siancas/Teatro Nacional

Like I said before, Prud'homme and Reyes composed the DR's national anthem. Prud'homme helped establish Dominican national identity following the country’s independence from Spain. He was a legislator in Congress and was an outspoken critic of the US. He was also an author who wrote fervently nationalist works and wrote the words to Quisqueyanos valientes. Reyes wrote the music. Reyes was a youth during the 1844 independence and was inspired to join the army. As a soldier he studied music and learned to play several instruments, cello being his best. Most of his compositions were unpublished. The anthem was written in 1883 but was not made official until 1934, again by Trujillo. The Teatro Nacional is part of La Plaza de Cultura and hosts a theatre, a library, and a center for the recovery, preservation and dissemination of Dominican Music.

Believe it or not, I wrote about half of all of that from memory. The rest is Google and Wikipedia (en español at times, what).

The coins are more complex than the coins in the US. There's a lot going on with these. Most of them have an important figure (Duarte, Sánchez, Mella, and Luperón) on the front and the DR coat of arms on the back. The 25 peso piece for example features Luperón. 

Reading about the heroes on DR currency tells me a little bit more about the country. There's no way to know everything about how the country was shaped just by looking at the money. But this entire exercise started by me seeing a French name like Prud'homme and wondering what that was all about. I fell down the rabbit hole. I liked what I found.

Also I apologize for some of the wonky HTML. Holy hell was it a pain in the ass to get it right. Blogger should have an easier interface.

The beginning, part IV: The boyfriend/El comienzo, parte cuatro: el novio

This can also be subtitled: "I am a complete idiot." But I'll get to that.

I've mentioned my boyfriend, Sam, a few times in previous entries. He's a big part of my story here and in the United States. The planning process for my internship and study abroad took over a year to complete. During that time, Sam went from being supportive but reluctant to being supportive and wanting me to go more than I wanted to go.

Part of my current homesickness is missing Sam. I want him to be here with me. We've discussed settling down outside of the States and he likes the idea. We're together in part for what our future could be like, but I want to be with him right now.

Our relationship progressed pretty quickly once we got together. He said "I love you" to me the night we got together. A week later I knew I was in love with him. That scared the everloving crap out of me. I can't handle being emotionally vulnerable. I was in the shower a few days before New Year's Eve in 2009 when it hit me that I was in love with him, and I cried hysterically because I was terrified of the emotion of love. I wanted to run out of the bathroom and jump out the window.

Then I told him I loved him over dinner at Carl's Jr. Which is actually not the first time I'd expressed the depths of my emotion to someone at Carl's Jr. I told my first boyfriend I loved him at a Carl's Jr. in my hometown when I was 18. It took me two months to realize it. It only took a week with Sam. And most of that week was spent fighting between my emotions and my logic.

My emotions won.

Not too long after the Carl's Jr. dinner, Sam practically lived with me in my apartment on campus. We were together almost every day. The only real time when we spent time apart was the summer, when I moved in with my best friend and her mom. I lived there the last two summers after I had to move out of campus housing. Sam stayed overnight sometimes at my friend's place.

We found an apartment across the street from San Jose State and moved in there with another close friend in July. I love my ridiculously luxurious and spacious apartment in Santo Domingo. Seriously, I could ballroom dance in the entryway. There's a third bedroom and bathroom going unused in our apartment. My only gripe is that the balcony isn't big enough for chairs. I want to sit out there and look at the sea.

But I love my small, quirky, dumpy apartment in San Jose. Even with the tiny bathroom with the leaky shower stall, lack of air conditioning, and crackling (probably lead-laced) paint. I love it because it belongs to my roommate, Sam, and me. I love it because Sam is there.

He is not here and it's making me sad.

I hate that we can't talk as much as I want us to. It got worse this weekend when the power cord for his computer broke. He can't charge and use his laptop now. I ordered a replacement cord from Ebay, but I didn't read the seller's profile. Turns out the cord is shipping from China and it won't arrive in the US until November 1, the latest November 15. I checked for other options on Ebay and they're all around the same price I paid and they also ship from China, so there's nothing I can really do.

Talking via chat and video chat on the internet is our main method of communication. I want to save my phone minutes for when I call my parents, as they don't understand the internet.

So I don't get to talk to my boyfriend for a month.

This is awful.

A tree grows in Santo Domingo/Un árbol crece en Santo Domingo

I've been here for six weeks and just recently I started to feel homesick.

The struggles and fear I had when I first got here were related to not fitting in and feeling like an outsider. I didn't want to go home but I felt like I couldn't cut it here.

Now I just plain miss California. I miss the rhythm of my old life. I miss working at the pool. I miss Mexican food. Sometimes I think I miss cooler weather--at least, cuddling up in a blanket and a hoodie and drinking hot chocolate with Kahlua.

This week I went to the mall to buy new shoes and a new dress. The mall was huge and not much different from malls I've been to in America. There was even a Payless Shoe Source store. Here, the name is a misnomer. They charge 2250 pesos for a pair of basic black Mary Janes--that's around US$50. In the States, I patronize Payless because, well, I pay less for shoes there.

I found a good pair of black leather flats that are super comfy at a Dominican shoe store next to Payless. It was a throwback to shoe stores I don't see in the States, where they have dedicated shoe salespeople helping you find what you want, suggesting styles and sizes, and bringing the shoes to you. I spent 700 pesos (roughly US$20) and I couldn't be happier.

Clothes shopping was more standard. I gravitated to sales racks at the stores with cute ladies' clothes and found a nice black dress for 700 pesos.

The most impressive thing about the mall was the huge grocery store attached to it. Appropriately named Jumbo, it's a two-story grocery like a Super Target and it has extensive areas for the bakery, butcher/meat,   fresh produce, liquor, and deli.

I wish we had a mall with a grocery store in the States. I'd be all over that.

In my current events class, my prof talked about our individual cultural identities. She said you can be a mango tree growing in the Dominican Republic and you could be transplanted to different soil anywhere in the world. You could thrive in the new soil, but you're still a mango tree.

It goes along with the point I made before. I still have an American brain. I want the knowledge to see things from different perspectives and I've taken the steps to begin that education. But I'm still the tree that grew up in California, so I'll always come back to what I know as that tree. I want the freedom to thrive in other places. I'm not finished growing yet.

Dream job/Mi trabajo de mis sueños

Today I visited Major League Baseball's offices in Santo Domingo. The official title of the operation is the office of the commissioner in Latin America. I went in thinking it was a massive compound with mega signage telling everyone where it is and how important it is. Especially with a formal title like that.

It's a tiny house converted into an office structure in a cul de sac off Avenida 27th de febrero (a main highway in Santo Domingo). There are pictures of baseball stadiums, legendary players, and team logos on the walls. It's small and meager and I love it for that very reason.

I met the community affairs director, who's another Hispanic-American from California. She explained to me what the office does. Everything you can think of for MLB to do in Latin America, they do it. It's not just Dominican Republic. It's Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, anywhere where they play baseball in the region. We talked a lot about the educational opportunities for prospects in the Dominican Republic and she introduced me to the rest of the staff. I met quite a few other American ex-pats there, including a guy from Cupertino (aka the Silicon Valley, where I live in the States).

Obviously I can't go into detail about my visit as MLB plays their cards very close to the chest. Especially here. My contact at the offices here got into some trouble when a writer from ESPN Deportes blabbed a bunch of sensitive information and this confirmed what I suspected going in. I have to play by different rules here as a journalist. I know to stay in the game, you have to play the game, and you have to know the rules wherever you go.

What I can tell you is that I'm helping put together a newsletter for the offices. I jumped on it the moment my contact mentioned the project. I'd do anything to be involved in working here. I'm a good writer and I have the background for producing news content, so why not?

A few years ago someone on a Giants blog I frequent jokingly suggested I become the Giants general manager. I laughed and said something like "yeah, that'll be the day." But then I thought, why not me? That started a long journey of contemplating my future in sports. Is writing enough? Where is journalism going as an industry and trade? How can I stay with baseball for the rest of my life and make enough to support myself and my family?

I did the research. I interviewed a few general managers and other sports executives in minor league baseball. I learned that in the minors especially, being an executive is almost all about business. Apologies to the business people out there, but that bores me to tears. I want to be involved in the day to day operations of baseball. So maybe being a GM isn't for me.

However, working for the MLB offices here could be for me. Everything I saw and learned about today excites me. Literally anything I can think of concerning baseball development in the DR happens in that office on a daily basis.

This is my dream job.

I struggled to find the idea of what I really wanted to do. For a while it was limited to becoming someone's protegee. First, I was supposed to be the next Jon Miller, Hall of Fame television and radio broadcaster, before my broadcasting dreams died. Then it was the next Rob Neyer, a high profile baseball columnist, writer, and author (who tabbed me to work on the now dead Baseballin' on a Budget, and who called me a "fine writer." I'm still proud of that). Then my destiny was to be the next Keith Law, who started out in the Toronto Blue Jays front office and jumped to writing about prospects and scouting for Baseball America and ESPN.com.

These guys are great at what they do, but I need to find what I want to do. I'm not here to be the next version of anyone else. I'm here to be Chris Martinez, and I think I found the title I want to attach to my name. At least, I found the place where they can award me that title.

It doesn't bother me that the dream is still ambiguous. I've learned as I grow in my journalism career and as I get older that success isn't necessarily doing the same thing forever. If you asked me, even in 2008 where I'd be in 2011 in my career, I couldn't tell you. Now I'm doing things that are completely different from what I did three years ago. And I don't know what I can or will be in 2016. I just know that I want to be here, working in the office of the commissioner of Major League Baseball in Latin American affairs.

The dream also confirms what I have to do next: graduate, get my MA in sports management, and become fluent in Spanish. Those plans are already on track. My visit confirmed that I've done everything right on my path to get here.

First things first. I have to rock the shit out of the newsletter.

Out of practice/Me falta práctica

How many of you thought that things would be totally different once I got here?

I also thought things would be completely different. I put my journalism work on hold to focus on what I had to do here and I put my daily Spanish lessons aside in the belief that I'd learn enough just by immersion.

As I mentioned in the last post, I pitched the idea for winter leagues coverage while I'm here to my collaborators at Bay City Ball, and they loved it. Starting next week, I'm writing a weekly feature on Giants prospects in the assorted fall/winter leagues. 

The Arizona Fall League starts today and the Dominican League starts October 14. The Mexican League starts October 11. The Australian League starts November 3. The Venezuelan and Puerto Rican leagues don't have start dates published on MLB's website, but traditionally the Venezuelan league starts in mid-October and the Puerto Rican league starts in November. I'm keeping tabs on the Nicaraguan and Colombian winter leagues in case any Giants players show up there.

The AFL is a showcase for the top minor league talent in baseball. Each MLB team sends about six or seven of their best (in theory) prospects to Arizona for six weeks in October and November. I covered the AFL for ten days a few years ago and it was a really great experience.

The other leagues are just regular old winter leagues, with locals from the countries and some MLB players. Although I caught myself, in my American brain, thinking that the DWL was the "winter league." Absolutely not. It's THE league here.

This is writing I would be doing if I was in the States. The more things change, as they say, the more they stay the same.

I'm joining a beginning Spanish class at UNIBE, starting tomorrow. It's Spanish as a foreign language class and I'm not taking it for credit or for a grade. It's for practice. It was my internship coordinators' idea to get me more practice and help me be comfortable with speaking and listening. 

Tomorrow is my first day in the class so I have no idea how it will be. If it's anything like my other classes, I'll be with other international students. The class meets three days a week and there's no pressure on me to do assignments or take tests. I'm looking forward to working on my Spanish in a low-pressure setting.

If I were doing a regular semester at San Jose State, I'd be in Spanish 25A right now, the first class of the intermediate level. While I'd have a lot on the line there--a grade and a requirement for my minor, plus the added pressure of learning Spanish well--I'd still be learning. 

So I'm still writing about baseball and I'm still studying Spanish. I'm just doing it in the tropics. I was out of practice for a month and it found its way back to me.

I take that as a sign that I was meant to do this all along.

One month: Benchmarks/Un mes: niveles

We're a month into this crazy adventure I undertook. It feels like I've been here forever, and at the same time it feels like I just got here. I'm swimming around in paradoxes lately. Sometimes I feel like I haven't learned or done anything, and sometimes I feel like I've learned and achieved quite a bit. I see evidence in myself that I've changed, but at times I feel like nothing has changed at all.

I have a few benchmarks for my adventure here: my adaptation to life in the Dominican Republic (aka, how I handle culture shock), my Spanish skills, and my personal and professional growth.

Let's break each one down.

I have to admit that culture shock is tough. It's having its way with me still, tossing me down the stairs and then spitting on my inert body. I love the people, the environment, and the way of life here. Fitting in is working. But I'm still an American mind stuck in a body that took me far away from my previous reality and those two sides of me don't always get along.

Invariably culture shock and my Spanish skills go hand-in-hand. I hit the wall badly this past week with my Spanish. I'm still having trouble with understanding people and it built up before I cracked under the pressure and frustration. I was depressed and feeling useless all week because I feel my Spanish sucks.

Today I went out with my roommate to a pool party. I felt like absolute ass for the first few hours because of my crappy week. But I tried to speak Spanish. I started to think in Spanish--not translate what I wanted to say from English, but think of words and logic in Spanish. And I slowly understood what the people around me were talking about.

I was able to get the gist of what the people at the party asked me, things about my background, my studies, and how I like the D.R. I was able to articulate what I do, who I am, and what I like well. I didn't understand everything and I didn't speak perfect Spanish, but I spoke well enough to be understood and I understood enough to communicate in the first place.

This is a small yet huge step. I know I won't magically solve my communication problems after one good day with the language. Now I understand why I communicated well in that environment. I was comfortable. I knew I was allowed to make mistakes and I wasn't alone. Everyone there was willing and able to help me.

When I'm at school or at my internship meetings or in some other scenario where I'm on the spot, I freeze up. I can't remember how to speak or which words to say. I feel like an outsider and it shuts me down. Which is a damn shame because I know I can speak Spanish and I can do it well for what I know and what I've studied.

As for personal and professional growth, I'd say the personal growth lies in my ability to recognize the best environment for my Spanish practice and my own awareness of my skills. It's also important to note that while I flail around in despair when culture shock is ruining my life, I'm committed to getting through it.

My professional growth has taken a few turns since I came here. My schoolwork is going well and my internship is great. I guess I'm used to being busier than what the threshold of human endurance allows with my three-ring balancing act in the States, but I find myself with nothing to do on most days. I bang out my schoolwork and articles quickly and sit around watching garbage on television or reading gossip blogs all day. Oh No They Didn't is my BFF these days. Their GIF parties complete me.

I mentioned my sportswriting jobs before. You know that SF Dugout ceased operations this summer. Baseballin' on a Budget, the A's blog I write for, just called it quits. I'm down to one regular job, Bay City Ball. I said I would take a hiatus on my writing jobs while I was here, but the dust has settled and I have all this free time being bored and letting my brain rot. Why not fill it with something constructive?

While we work out the details on my return to BCB, I entertain thoughts of what my writing life will be with another project down the tubes. Do I wander around the internet with a hand-written sign that says, "will blog for food"? Do I start a refugee camp for internet journalists? Do I start cold calling (cold emailing?) sports news outlets on the web and selling myself as the missing link for their coverage, as one of the rare people out there who knows and loves minor league baseball?

Maybe the lessons I learn and gifts I receive on this adventure won't be the ones I expected. Perspective, fortitude, and freedom are not things I expected to find here. But those things found me.