Have you noticed that, like 90% of
the names associated with that clinic down in Florida are Latin? Is there a definable
reason for this?
The first thing you have to realize
is three things (is that a correct sentence?).
One, this is a neighborhood thing.
Many of the Latin baseball players in both the major and minor leagues live in
South Florida during the off-season. Some chose not to return to their homeland
to prevent the kind of visa problems Jenrry Mejia went through this month.
Others just chose the environment of Florida over the poverty ridden
neighborhood they grew up in. They hang together in the clubs, let the big
leaguers pick up the bar tabs, and work out together in the gyms, but we’ll get
back to that in a paragraph or two.
Secondly, there really are only two
Latin American countries that are baseball crazy. One is Cuba, which we have
little or no knowledge/access of and the other is the Dominican Republic.
Venezuela comes in a distant third, while Columbia and Panama pull up the rear.
Most black or white Americans lop all the Latin players into one happy pot, but
it’s simply not so. Dominicans and Venezuelans don’t party down together and
there’s a reason there are two separate Latin leagues (DSL and VSL) in major
league baseball.
The other reason is more genetic. The
average Latin male doesn’t scale in at 6-3 and 210. Do yourself a favor. Call
up the high school in your area that is located in a neighborhood where Latin
immigrants are schooling their young. Find out when the next soccer game is and
go out and get a gander at these high school juniors and seniors. You will get
a quick lesson in God not dishing out equals when it comes to height and
weight. Speed yes, but everybody can’t be a shortstop.
The last time I looked there were
only three major league starters over the height of 6-0.
Okay, let’s get back to that gym.
Word gets out that some sports start
has or is healing faster than projected because some doctor in a clinic has
come up with a new treatment. The attraction here is for multiple reasons.
First, it’s a doctor. You know, one of those guys that go to school and get a
legal license to practice medicine. Secondly, it’s in a legal clinic
that’s open somewhere along the main strip. And third, the substance is also
legal, though, at this point, none of the players know what’s in it and if any
of the ingredients are on the banned substance list baseball updates all the
time.
One other thing. This just doesn’t
attract injured players. No one is going to come up with a way for a Latino
baseball player to grow six inches, but most are willing to try any legal
substance that can build stamina, muscle, or strength. Remember, the bar
isn’t equal to the white and black players, Sure, there are exceptions, but the
average Latino player is under 5-10.
So, it’s either one phone call for an
appointment or a call by one for the whole posse from the gym to go down and
check the doctor out. Phone calls lead to appointments. Appointments lead to
names being written down. Well, you see where I’m going here.
Is there a chance some players took a
treatment or two?
Did they write down what’s in the
tube, find one of the substances on the banned list, and never go back to the
clinic?
Is this really a Latino thing or did
it just happen because the clinic was located in the same neighborhood these
players live in during the off-season?
Let’s take OF Cesar Puello as an example. He’s read all the press on him written
in 2010-2011 that he’s the rising outfield star of the New York Mets. Then,
ticky-tacky injuries start to slow up his career and the stat line begins to be
affected as well. The kids working out in the off-season and someone tells him
that some track star worked his way back to 100% after a few treatments with
some local doctor who runs a clinic down “on the strip”.
It’s a doctor, in a clinic, in the
United States of America. Worth a trip, right?
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