Alan Klein Sugarball

Alan Kleins Sugarball is both a historical overview and cultural study of how citizens of the friar p arrive ater Republic not only enjoy baseball game but use it as a agent of cultural self-ex budgeion and, more importantly, resistance to American domi bea of their little(a) country. Though not openly conflicting to the United States, the friar preacher public uses baseball as a means of asserting pride and equivalence in the face of long, formidable neocolonial domi state.Baseball is a specifically American entity only partly because it was created and evolved in the United States, where for decades it remained the supreme spectator sport. More importantly, Klein asserts, baseball is uniquely American in how it has stagger to other nations and dominates the lame elsewhere. It has the largest and strongest organization, the richest teams, largest fan base, most lucrative broadcasting and advertising contracts, and most extensive net influences for scouting and pretender development.Baseballs presence in the Dominican Republic (among the western hemispheres poorest nations) is in any case uniquely American because, as with other aspects of American culture, it was brought in that location as American domination spread throughout the Caribbean American interests assumed control of the Dominican economy.However, unlike other American corporations, study coalition Baseball did not provoke widespread, unmitigated resentment, but is for the most part supported by the nations people. In addition, the methods long used to scout and sign Dominican ballplayers is similarly dubious and rifer with finesse Klein calls their methods so reminiscent of those of the West African slave traders of three centuries earlier (42).In terms of the high itself, the rules and style in each are generally the same, and while Dominicans play the naughty with an intensity adjoin with Americans, their prelude to other aspects of baseball are more casual, reflecting that societys leniency and lax approach to time. While Dominican players play as hard as their American teammates and opp one and only(a)nts, they embrace a a great deal more casual attitude toward time, frequently showing up late for meetings or practice unless specifically required to be punctual. In addition, they tend to be more exuberant and unrestrained playing the game seriously is not equated with a somber demeanor.Most of the differences lie off the field, particularly in the glory of a stadium on game day. The fan culture is radically different where American fans are more restrained, often get to games on time, and can sometimes be confrontational with other fans, Dominican fans are generally louder, more physically and temperamentally slack offed, more effusive (even with strangers), and, despite the demonstrative eubstance language and shouting sh consume in arguments, there is far less violence than at an American ballgame.Klein attributes this to the position that Do minican fans are far more social than conglutination Americans, more in tune with human frailty. Because they gull so much human vulnerability, because they are closer to the margins of life, they are more likely to resist the press out to bully and harm (148).Economic power essentially defines the relationship between American and Dominican baseball, because Major League Baseball develops and signs much of the local Dominican talent, leaving the Dominican professional league and nonprofessional ranks underdeveloped and subordinate to the North American teams who establish baseball academies and working agreements with Dominican teams.Since 1955, when the study leagues naturalized working agreements with Dominican professional clubs (and, more significantly, eliminated the color line that prevented most Dominicans, who are predominantly mulatto, from playing), American baseball has shown its hegemony over its Dominican counterpart, turning the latter into a virtual colony by fetching its raw resources and giving back very little in return. Klein comments The lure of cheap, abundant talent in the Dominican Republic led American teams to establish a more substantial presence there . . . and the bonds between American and Dominican baseball came increasingly to resemble other frugal and political relations between the both countries (36).Klein writes that most Dominicans accept American dominance of their baseball, adding that whereas giants such as Falconbridge and GTE are resented, major league teams are largely supported (2), mainly because Dominican players have such a celebrated presence and bring positive attention to their impoverished homeland. This support is by no means unconditional, though they steadfastly refuse to approach the game with American businesslike gravitas instead, they treat the game itself slenderly like Carnival, with joy coexisting alongside energetic, intense play.Resistance appears in the way Dominican players relax at ho me, interacting more freely with fans, who themselves resist American baseballs decorum by be themselves and creating a festive, effusive, Carnival-like atmosphere. According to Klein, The game remains American in structure, but its setting is Dominican and it has die infused with Dominican values (149). Indeed, the park fosters a microcosm of Dominican society, particularly its impoverished economy, and unlike the more shift American baseball business, it does not exclude its marginal activities.In addition to the paid vendors and park employees within the stadium, an illicit economy flourishes both within and on the outside, with self-appointed car watchers, vendors, and ushers (adults and children alike) plying their trade for small fees, and diskmakers work openly, often in the presence of the police, who turn a blind eye to most illegal drill aside from the rare fight.Dominican baseballs symbolic significance is not a guts of the pastoral heritage, like some in America i nterpret it instead, it reflects Dominicans sense of themselves being dominated by the United States, and offers a symbolic outlet for striking back.In his preface, Klein writes The tensions between a batter who has two strikes against him and the opposing pitcher are a metaphor for the political and cultural tensions described in this book (xi). Indeed, the Dominican republics deeply entrenched poverty and long domination by overseas powers give it a feeling of vulnerability and compel its people to seek some means of besting the dominant power if not politically or economically, then at least athletically.At the start of the book, Klein states that each turn at bat is a candle of hope, every swing is the wave of a banner, the wholesale arc of a sword (1). Indeed, when a Dominican reaches the major leagues and excels, it is not merely an athletic succeeder story but a symbolic invasion and conquest of the conquerors territory. (The United States doubly occupied the Dominican R epublic in the twentieth century, an ever-present fact in Dominicans minds.)Also, the atmosphere in the crowd of a Dominican professional game serves as the countrys symbolic self-confidence of its culture in the face of American dominance. At Santo Domingos Quisqueya Stadium, one witnesses a mass spectacle that makes cooccurring use of American and Dominican elements. . . . Baseball at Quisqueya embodies many of the things that North Americans find blameworthy in Dominican culture lateness, overly casual behavior, inefficiency. But the Dominicans see these characteristics as a source of pride, and they take their game seriously (150).The Dominican baseball press is a source of more open resistance says Klein, the press has inadvertently created a Latino universe of discourse, one in which North Americans are conspicuously lacking (127). Its journalists display an obvious bias by devoting so much attention to Dominicans in the major leagues that one hardly knows other nationalit ies even participate.In addition, Dominican baseball writers openly blame Dominican baseballs problems on American control, protesting a skewed economic relationship that mirrors the larger political and economic imbalance. They promote much of the publics pride, says Klein, but that pride is tempered by the view that Dominican baseball is still an adjunct to the American game (121). Dominican resistance is thus aimed at countering this ill-fitting fact.In baseball terms, American culture interacts with Dominican culture by treating it with some degree of superciliousness and insensitivity. Many American baseball professionals are impatient with Dominicans loose sense of time, quickly deeming Latino players uncoachable operate cases, without looking at the cultural differences.Among Dominicans, says Klein, There is none of the regimentation, guardedness, and nervous tension that characterizes players in the United States. North American managers must take this looseness into accou nt when they go to the Caribbean, for the players conception of the game and of time is as elastic as that of other Dominicans (148).Despite the United States long domination of the Dominican Republic, the small nations people feel less anger than a mixture of muted resentment and tendency to attain American material prosperity and stability, which for most are a distant, unreachable ideal. Thus, when Dominican ballplayers reach the major leagues, their large salaries represent a sort of victory and source of immense pride for the small island nation. Says Klein, Much as archeological treasures attest to a rich Dominican past, salaries attest to the present (128).Kleins study pays keen attention not only to Dominican history but also to the shipway in which Dominicans embrace this imported sport but also use their prowess to offer their own subtle response to American political and economic dominance. The dynamic he describes illustrates not only American hegemony, but also how su bordinated peoples identity and spirit can thrive even in the face of unknown domination.Klein, Alan M. Sugarball. New Haven Yale University Press, 1991.