{"id":9,"date":"2006-03-13T21:16:43","date_gmt":"2006-03-14T01:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/2006\/03\/13\/the-republic-of-baseball\/"},"modified":"2006-03-13T21:16:43","modified_gmt":"2006-03-14T01:16:43","slug":"the-republic-of-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/2006\/03\/13\/the-republic-of-baseball\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republic of Baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a138'><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Over the past five years I have been privileged to have been part of a<br \/>\ngreat project involving the Dominican Republic, baseball and<br \/>\nfilm.&nbsp; Two members of the Board of Directors of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sportsdevfoundation.org\">Sports for Development Foundation<\/a>,<br \/>\nthe not-for-profit that I founded, Daniel Manatt and Robert Ruck, have<br \/>\nled the charge, along with Jose Mota, Christa Alou and Bret Granato, to<br \/>\nproduce a documentary film titled <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Republic of Baseball: Dominican Giants of the American Game<\/span>, which is set to premiere this Sunday at 6:00 PM at the San Diego Latin Film Festival.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>As a production of the Sports for Development Foundation and Manatt<br \/>\nMedia LLC, this film details the experiences of the first<br \/>\ngeneration of Dominican players to play in the major leagues in the<br \/>\nUnited States.&nbsp; It is a story that might surprise some viewers<br \/>\nwhen the state of today&#8217;s game is examined in comparison.&nbsp; When<br \/>\nFelipe Alou and his brothers Jesus and Matty, Ozzie Virgil and Manny<br \/>\nMota broke into the game, racism in the form of Jim Crow laws was at<br \/>\nevery turn.&nbsp; Lumped in with black players, the Dominican players<br \/>\nwho today are the respected, elder statesmen of the game were a half a century<br \/>\nago misunderstood and insulted by the public and their fellow<br \/>\nplayers.&nbsp; Their first years in the big leagues were a trial by<br \/>\nfire, and this film makes all of us viewers understand their story in<br \/>\nways never told before.<\/p>\n<p>The difficulties that these first Dominican players faced 50 years ago<br \/>\nare not totally gone.&nbsp; Clubhouses in baseball are still mostly<br \/>\ndivided by language and sometimes by color, and for even the most<br \/>\ntalented Dominicans who arrive in the US, there are tremendous hurdles<br \/>\nof culture, language and ignorance to break down.<\/p>\n<p>But this premiere in the midst of the final games of the first ever <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldbaseballclassic.com\">World Baseball Classic<\/a><br \/>\nshould be seen as a shining tribute to those players who paved the<br \/>\nway.&nbsp; As the film gets more and more exposure, I hope that it<br \/>\nhelps more Americans understand the history of the Dominican Republic,<br \/>\nthat country&#8217;s deep ties and passion for baseball, and the strength and<br \/>\ndignity of its first ambassadors in major league baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past five years I have been privileged to have been part of a great project involving the Dominican Republic, baseball and film.&nbsp; Two members of the Board of Directors of the Sports for Development Foundation, the not-for-profit that I founded, Daniel Manatt and Robert Ruck, have led the charge, along with Jose Mota, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/kirkman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}