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“PAPÁ, I WANT TO PLAY BASEBALL!” CHAPTER FOUR 55 A father and son were spending time together on a lazy, hot afternoon in Aragua, Venezuela, in 1990. The boy was twelve years old, and the father liked to give his son as much attention as his demanding job allowed. All too soon, the boy would be a man, and then the time for father and son to spend time together on lazy, hot afternoons would have disappeared forever. The father and son left the Universidad Nacional Abierta, located in the Andrés Bello neighborhood in Maracay, where the father was taking some courses in electrical engineering. As the two drove home down Avenida Barrio Independencia, the boy became quiet. He stared out the window, and his gaze locked on something. Because the father had to watch traffic, he could not ascertain what captivated his son. They had driven down this road many times before without the boy fixating on anything in particular. “Papá, stop the car,” the boy suddenly said. “What?” the father replied, trying to divide his attention between his son and the road. “There, papá.” The boy pointed out the window. “A baseball field. I want to look.” The father glanced in the direction indicated by his son, and he saw some boys playing baseball, perhaps a youth league team. The father parked the car, and he and his son walked over to the baseball field. The boy walked briskly, staring intensely at the field. It was almost as if the boy was a moth drawn to a flame. When the father and son reached the baseball field, they stood in silence watching a youth league team practice. It was not long before the boy spoke to his father. “Papá, I want to play baseball!” he said, not taking his eyes off the practicing youngsters. His father smiled, not at all surprised that his boy wanted to 56 exploitation and mistreatment in the global ballpark play baseball. After all, what Venezuelan boy did not want to play baseball? Smiling, the father told his son that it was good that he wanted to play baseball and that they would work to fulfill this desire soon. The boy looked up at his father with a look of defiance. “No, papá, I want to play baseball right now!” Alexi Quiroz had the baseball bug all right, and he had it bad.1 Like virtually all Venezuelans, this father and son—and the rest of the Quiroz family—were baseball fans. The Quirozes lived in Maracay, home town of one of Venezuela’s most famous baseball players—David Concepción, who played for Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine in the 1970s.2 At home, the family watched baseball on TV. They followed and, as baseball fans everywhere do, argued about the attributes and failings of teams and players. Antonio Armas , Andrés Galarraga, Ozzie Guillén, Mark McGwire, and Ricky Henderson were household names.3 Like most Venezuelans, this family divided the year into two seasons determined not by the planet’s orbit around the sun, but by baseball: the Venezuelan Winter League season and the Major League Baseball (MLB) season—las Grandes Ligas. The Quirozes supported Los Leones del Caracas (Caracas Lions) during the Winter League season, and they followed the Oakland Athletics during the major league season. Alexis Sr. liked Oakland because Venezuelan Antonio Armas once played for the A’s; and his son, Alexis (or Alexi as he prefers to be called), cheered for Oakland because he liked the big power hitters, Mark McGwire and José Canseco.4 Although the desire to play baseball now burned inside him, Alexi Quiroz faced a particularly important hurdle: he knew nothing about playing organized baseball. Up to that point, Alexi had enjoyed baseball with his family but had not demonstrated any desire to play organized ball.5 Alexi had played catch and caimaneras (informal, pick-up games) with his family and friends from age four. He knew how to watch baseball on TV, and he understood how the game was played. He could talk about teams and players because he absorbed so much baseball from his family’s habits and the general cultural role baseball played in Venezuela.6 But he had not yet learned anything about how to play baseball properly. At twelve, Alexi was getting a late start in organized baseball. Boys in Venezuela begin playing seriously at earlier ages, sometimes as early as six or seven years old, and...

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