Dropping the B word

If you’ve driven in the Dominican Republic you’ve met men like him: perhaps he guided you into a space in an empty parking lot and promised to look after your car, or else appeared after you’d parked to lay a swath of cardboard over your windshield. You probably tipped him, although he didn’t really do much of anything. You might properly describe this guy as a buscón.

I intend to do a series of pieces on cleaning up the Latin American market, and I think it’s useful to begin here, as I’ve heard intelligent, well-informed reporters broach the possibility of “getting rid of the buscones.” A better start may be to get rid of the term buscón.

In my experience, the only Dominicans who use the word are past or present employees of the American baseball industry. When your man on the street wants to talk about the men who scout, train, and negotiate on behalf of amateur baseball players, they typically use respectful phrases like trainer, coach, or adviser. (When Ynoa signed last July 2, one Santo Domingo newspaper went so far as to describe Edgar Mercedes as Ynoa’s mentor.)

Meanwhile, when baseball people use the word, they tend to do so derisively. The derision may be rooted in the days when Dominican prospects rarely earned even five-figure bonuses, when the advisers were working for something closer to tip money. I also understand it hierarchically: the club employees are insiders and like to remind everyone that the advisers are not.

But the bonuses paid to Latin American prospects have exploded, and the advisers have become increasingly professional. While they have been in the middle of the scandals that periodically shake the baseball world, they perform two absolutely vital functions: They train young athletes, helping them develop the skills and physicality to play pro baseball, and they negotiate with clubs on behalf of the prospects. You might as well get rid of high school baseball coaches and player-agents.

For fifty or so years Latin America has been the Wild West of baseball’s talent market, and cleaning it up is going to mean establishing structure where there has been little. Doing so will not be easy, and MLB will need what help it can get. It would be wise to recognize advisers as partners, rather than annoyances: as men who care deeply for the boys that they train, and who are heavily invested in the success of the Latin American game.

(Photo: Advisers watching a tryout at Baseball City. They were a nervous bunch, toyed with their cell phones incessantly and mostly did not talk to each other. As a group, they gave off the vibe of sports, or hustlers. And yet I found the advisers I met possessing of deep and solemn concern for the well-being of their players.)