Hecht. (2022, April). SERGEANT MATT HECHT VIA RAWPIXEL. Fordham Observer. https://fordhamobserver.com/68915/recent/sports-and-health/batter-up-baseball-is-back/#modal-photo
This article is from the Houston Chronicle’s online web page the Chron and was written by the newspaper’s national baseball writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz. Ortiz also worked for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a lead sports columnist and would go on to found Our Esquina, a website that chronicles Latino sports and art. He was also the first Latino to serve as president of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Ortiz’s interest in writing this article is to explain how young players are convinced to lie about their age to contend with what the Major League needs from players. His interest is in displaying how the issue is created by the MLB and does little to dissuade young players from doing less than legal things because of the profits they gain from the system’s misuse. The MLB established an office in Santo Domingo at the turn of the 21st century to reflect its commitment to international development, but another purpose of the office is to make sure players and teams are following Dominican laws.
The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida in May released its annual study of diversity hiring in MLB. The report said of 975 big league players on April 1, that 278 of them (28.5%) were Hispanic or Latino. That has been at least 25% each year since 1998. The four Latino managers at the beginning of the season matched the most — like the three previous seasons, as well as 2004 and 2011.
Cranston, Mike & Smale, David. “No Latino GMs in MLB after Avila firing, only 3 managers.” USA Today. August 11, 2022.
ORTIZ, JOSE DE JESUS. 2008. “Lying about Age Not Uncommon for Dominican Baseball Players.” Chron. May 4, 2008. https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/Lying-about-age-not-uncommon-for-Dominican-1781935.php.