Fausto Carmona is Really Desi Arnaz

28-year old Cleveland Indians RHP Fausto Carmona was arrested yesterday for not being either 28 or for being Fausto Carmona.

Turns out he’s 31 years old and someone named Roberto Hernandez Heredia.

He went 1-10 in 2006 and then won 19 games in 2007… hmm.

Other than that…

There’s been multiple stories written nationally that this practice is quite common in ‘the Dominican’.  Miquel Tejada now admits he’s two years older than he reported. Even the Mets have one of these guys, P Luis Mateo, who we’re still not sure how old he is. I think he changed his name too, maybe from Fausto Carmona.

While we’re on the subject and he’s no longer a Met… have you ever stood next to and taken a good look at ‘23-year old’ Fernando Martinez?  I’m just saying…

These things don’t happen in the United States because there actually is documentation on the youth of America while they go through the school system.

They don’t even happen in Venezuela or Cuba where the communist government supports the most popular sport in their country.

But, the Dominican Republic, there doesn’t seem to be any… let me ask you a question. When was the last time you ever read about a Dominican baseball prospect and the name of his high school was also identified in the article? Are we supposed to believe that all these 16-year olds signed by American baseball teams have already graduated high school? Does anybody care anywhere? Baseball doesn’t, the parents surely don’t, and I don’t hear some government official balking at the lack of education either.

So, they don’t have to finish school, they can be shipped overseas at 16-years old, and, years later, they turn out to be older than the 16 they said they were when they left home.

Supporters of these practices say that, because of their poverty levels, they can’t compete for a college education like American kids can. They point to Puerto Rico who has developed far less star baseball players after being forced to be part of the American baseball draft.

Yes, that’s right. It would be much better for Puerto Rican teenagers to drop out of school and sign contracts with American baseball teams, rather than finish school and be “forced” to go to college.

Hey, I got an idea!

Let’s make the poor bastards finish high school. We can get baseball to donate baseball equipment to the schools there, and, let the kids become eligible for the baseball draft after their senior year. If they want, they can pass and accept a college education from an American college and become eligible again for the draft after… oh… let’s say their junior year in college.

Sure, they may, like in Puerto Rico, lag behind American kids in training, but they’ll catch up once the funds reach the high schools for equipment and coaching.

If not, they can always go back to changing their age.