Abusing the Dream: How PEDs Are Ruining Dominican Teenagers
“When a boy is born in a Dominican household, nearly all of the time a father wants to see him play baseball and finish the dream he was never able to accomplish. The dream of all fathers is to see their son on a MLB field taking their first at bat in the MLB. This is the dream of most Dominican children, as well. I know this because I lived through this.”
In the Dominican Republic the dream of almost every kid is to reach the MLB. The path to get there is not always the best. At the age of 15 it is not unusual to see prospects taking steroids, and missing school to play baseball, so that they can perform better in tryouts and try and get a contract from an MLB team.
PEDs are also known as performance enhancement drugs. It is the experience of most teens that play baseball to be told to use these by their coaches to speed up the process to sign a contract with an MLB team. They do it because it is their only choice – what are they going to do, go against their coaches and risk getting kicked out of the academy? If so, how will they take their families out of poverty? They could try and go to school, but in the Dominican Republic does that even guarantee you a job?
You may wonder, why do the parents of these kids let this happen? Well, the MLB is the only way for many of these kids to get out of poverty because they see it harder to graduate from college and get a job in a career they studied. This is because in the Dominican Republic many people finish their career in college, but when they go out to find a job they are never able to find anything because they have no experience.
When a boy is born in a Dominican household, nearly all of the time a father wants to see him play baseball and finish the dream he was never able to accomplish. The dream of all fathers is to see their son on a MLB field taking their first at bat in the MLB. This is the dream of most Dominican children, as well. I know this because I lived through this. My father always wanted me to play baseball and my big brother almost got to that dream. He was the captain of his team in college, but because his grades were not great, he was in a community college. In 2020, he was going to try and transfer to a D2 school, and he had the offers, but Covid came around and that stopped everything until 2021. At that point, he was 21 and at that age the baseball dream was over. It was time to give up on the childhood dream we all had. It was time to think about a career in college. He is almost graduating now and is trying to be a coach for a High School team, or be a trainer after he gets his degree.
The Dominican Republic contributes the most players in the MLB for a country outside of the U.S with 171, with 65 more players than the 2nd country which is Venezuela with 106. Venezuela is a country with a decaying economy and many young kids also see the MLB as the only way to get out of poverty.
In a ranking by ESPN of the top 25 players in the MLB going into the 2023 season, 8 of them were from the Dominican Republic. This goes to show how these players are developing in an effective way. It just might not be the right one.
In the MLB we see players get suspended for PEDs yearly. When we look at the data of players suspended for PEDs use from 2020-2023, there were 14 players suspended and 12 were from the Dominican Republic. These were not just role players; they were stars like Fernando Tatis Jr., and Robinson Cano.
Robinson Cano was the face of the Dominican Republic for years until he got caught with a steroid suspension in 2018. Even though he got some hate, it was not what normally happens; he was defended by many. But in 2020 he got a lot of hate because it was the second time and there were no excuses. The worst part of it all was that he was having a comeback year after a down year the season before. Cano was the face of the Dominican Republic, winning the country's first World Baseball Classic in 2013, and getting the MVP. It was the first time a team had won undefeated in this tournament, Japan was able to do this 10 years later in 2023. We can’t say it is all Cano fault for this because it is something that almost every player does in the Dominican Republic as they develop at a young age.
Another major reason why this continues to happen is because coaches want their prospects to sign quickly and secure a big bonus, so that they can get their percentage. The coaches are the one that tell these prospects to do this and we can’t blame them because that is the only path they have that can secure them getting out of poverty and allow them to help their families.
From my time playing I met many people, but it all started when my bestfriend, and cousin got into a team for the summer of 2016. I was really small and fast, so I started playing second base (or “2b”). I started to look up to players like Jose Altuve, and Robinson Cano that were the best 2b of the past decade, and that I felt I could relate to – Altuve because he was small and fast and Cano because he was from the same country as me. Baseball was all my life until age 16. I saw that I was not getting where I might have thought of and baseball was more of a dream instead of a reality. Playing baseball is about the pressure when you struggle, when you miss a play, when you strike out, and when you're the reason for the loss, and this is something that has happened to the best player in the world. Yes, even to Shohei Othani in one of the best seasons in MLB history in 2022 against the Braves, he gave up 6 runs, and went 0-3 with 2 Strikeouts. It is part of the game every player has a bad day and everyone struggles, but the way you handle it decides the player you are.
I was a defensive first player, but my friend had turned into a player that could do it all and was hitting home runs at the age of 11. There was a major skill gap between us because even though I could play defensive similar to him, I was not close to hitting like him. He started to focus on baseball while I used to play video games with my cousin. He became a top player in NYC and that was when our coach decided that it would be great if he goes to the Dominican Republic at the age of 15, so that he can focus more on baseball since it was almost guaranteed that he would get a multi-million dollar contract. Also, in the Dominican Republic there are better coaches and the way they train is more effective because like I said it is not common that they use PEDs and make players drink a lot of water so that they go to the bathroom a lot and so that the PEDs do not register in the body.
The life of a player is not easy and full of pressure everyday. Everyday they wake up their thinking how they’re going to get better and what they can improve. They’re mindset decides how good or bad they do. They’re thinking every day how they’ll accomplish their dream and if this gets in their head the result will not be positive 90% of the time.
That was in 2019, when he got multiple contracts for a million dollars and did not sign them because his agent believed he could have got more money. Now, he might not get a contract like that because of his age because that is something teams really care about. They'll get to develop a player more when he is 17 and get 1 full year more to develop with professionals then someone who is 18 and they could get a similar player in the MLB Draft. If he does it will be for 70% less than what he was offered and this is all because of an agent that got greedy. He is about to be 18 and is going to try and sign on January 15th.
This is not even the worst part about it all. When these prospects reach the age of 18 their chances lower significantly to reach the MLB teams because they get kicked out of their academy. The MLB teams that were dying to have them no longer care about them and these prospects don’t really go to school. This is because their only focus was to reach the MLB and now they have no plan because plan A was baseball and B was baseball, so if baseball falls their future falls as well. These prospects end up going back home and have to hit the workfield because they have no education, and don’t have any other choice.
This is not fair because if these prospects were in the U.S, they get chances to get to 23 years olds and in the worst case scenario they find a way to go to college for free and still have a lot of options with their futures. The data shows that in the MLB draft the average age of a player getting drafted is 21, in the International Draft is 17-18. In the 2023 International pool there were only 2 players in the top 50 by MLB.com that were over the age of 19. This goes to show that the chances for a player outside of the U.S are limited and that is why these players have to use PEDs. This goes back to my point that kids outside the U.S sacrifice their time to play baseball and if they fail it all over, but in the U.S they get chances.
These players in the international pool just want to sign so that they can see if they can develop and show what they really have. In a video from “HD Baseball Academy” we see how it says that most prospects sign for a 10,000 bonus. This is nothing and what these players have to go through is the worst part about it all. So, these players are abusing their bodies and losing out on education for 10,000 dollars and a lot of hope.