PPI | Trade Fact of the Week | July 13, 2005 One Major League Baseball Player of Every Nine is from the Dominican Republic Editor's Notes: The PPI "Trade Fact of the Week" is a weekly email newsletter published by PPI's Trade & Global Markets Project. To sign up for a free subscription, click here. (Just make sure to check the box next to "Trade & Global Markets.") Original links are included though some may have expired. The Numbers: Nationalities of 2005 All-Star Baseball Players: United States: 45 (Puerto Rico): (2) Dominican Republic: 9 Venezuela: 6 Cuba: 2 Panama: 2 Japan: 1 Canada: 1 Netherlands (Curacao): 1 What They Mean: The 30 major league baseball teams have 750 active players, plus 145 on the disabled list. Of these 895 elite players, an astonishing 101 come from the Dominican Republic, including 10 of the 67 all-stars for 2005. (Soriano, Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Ortiz, and Colon from the American League; Martinez, Aramis Ramirez, Castillo, and Pujols from the National League.) Overall, 227 of the 895 elite players -- more than one in four -- are international recruits. Venezuela places second to the DR with 49; Mexico follows with 18. Canada provides 16 players and Japan 12; seven more players are Cuban, while six are from South Korea, five from Panama, four from Australia, and three from Taiwan. Of the remaining six, two are Colombian while Aruba, Curacao, Germany, and Nicaragua provide one apiece. The National Basketball Association is close behind and in some ways even more "globalized," tending to look more to Europe and Africa while baseball recruits in Latin America and East Asia. Internet portal Yahoo! lists 109 international recruits among the 593 players appearing on the NBA's 30 teams. (Though 54 of the 539, including some of the international players, seem to have been drafted but never put on a roster. The NBA's official list, sad to say, contains lots of broken links and player profiles that don't include hometowns and countries.) Overall, the NBA's international players represent a smaller fraction of the league than baseball's. On the other hand, they come from more countries, and no one nation provides vastly more than the rest. Tops among the 43 countries were Serbia/Montenegro with 11, France with eight, and Slovenia with seven, followed by Brazil, Georgia, Russia, and Turkey at five apiece. The others: Angola, Argentina, Australia, the Bahamas, Belgium, Bosnia, Canada, the Central African Republic, China, Republic of Congo, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mali, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Poland, Senegal, Spain, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, South Africa, Sudan, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Further Reading: 'The national passion' -- a history of Dominican Republic baseball from the DR government: http://www.dominicanrepublic.com/ thecountry/baseball.php Fan site from Japan tracks Hasegawa, Iguchi, Ishii, H. Matsui, K. Matsui, Nakamura, Nomo, Ohka, Otsuka, Suzuki, Tadano, Taguchi, Takatsu and Yabu, plus minor-league prospects and Taiwanese and Korean players. The "Go-Red Sox" blog is in Japanese only: http://japaneseballplayers.com/ MLB reports on recruiting plans for Taiwan: http://pittsburgh.pirates.mlb.com/NASApp/ mlb/content/printer_friendly/mlb/ y2004/m06/d23/c766235.jsp Eroding competitiveness? Before the 2005 All-Star Game, an exhibition game pitted international minor leaguers against American-born prospects. The "World Team" won, 4-0: http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/NASApp/ mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050710&content_id=1124782 &vkey=allstar2005&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb International pastime or not, the International Olympic Committee decided this summer to drop baseball from the 2012 sports list. Puzzling sports such as trampolining, rhythmic gymnastics, and synchronized swimming stay. The International Olympic Committee: http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp On the bright side, teams from around the world will compete in The World Baseball Classic next March: http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/wbc/index.jsp Dark side -- Jose Guillen of the Washington Nationals discusses steroids in Latin American baseball: http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/ESPNSports/story?id=656617 Index of Major League baseball players: http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/players Index of NBA players: http://www.sportsline.com/nba/players Minnesota Timberwolves recruit Nikoloz Tskitishvili's story, from the Embassy of Georgia: http://www.georgiaemb.org/DisplayMedia.asp?id=136