Baseball means the world to the Dominicans

By Art Spander   

SAN FRANCISCO — Maybe it doesn’t mean that much in America, which just happens to be where the game was created. Maybe it ranks somewhere below the Heat keeping their streak alive or Tiger and Lindsey admitting they are an item, and they certainly are.
     
But this World Baseball Classic, which will come to an end Tuesday night, with the Dominican Republic facing Puerto Rico at AT&T Park, is huge in those two places where the populations are small, two places where baseball matters more than the land where it once was called the national pastime.
    
All you had to do was watch the way the Dominicans bolted out of their dugout — well, the Giants’ dugout, but Monday night it was the Dominicans' — after they beat the Netherlands, 4-1, in their semifinal.
   
All you had to do was listen to the shouts and repetitive honking of horns from the Dominican fans, wrapped in their flags and their joy. This is their moment, as it will be Puerto Rico’s, a chance for two Caribbean baseball hotbeds to rank as the best.
   
The WBC officials must be disappointed in the way the United States has supported the Classic. Or not supported it. The crowds were big a weekend ago in Miami. But in San Francisco, they went from marginal — some 33,000 for Sunday night’s semi between Puerto Rico and Japan — to miserable, 27,527 on Monday night.
  
The Giants, the World Series champions, have sold out every game for two straight years at 41,000-seat AT&T. There was no spillover. No connection. There was only ennui, although not from the Dominicans, or the few Dutch who wore their orange sweatshirts with the word “Driemteam” on the front.
   
The Dream Team, in effect, is the Dominican Republic. It is 7-0 in the tournament. It is full of millionaire major-leaguers such as Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Hanley Ramirez and Nelson Cruz.      
  
“Those are great hitters,” said Hensley Meulens, who was the Netherlands' manager and also is the San Francisco Giants' hitting coach. “They rise to the top when it comes to playing big games like this.”
  
Most of the Netherlands' players are also Caribbean islanders, from Curacao and Aruba. Some you know — Andruw Jones, Wladimir Balentien. Most you don’t. They hung in behind a pitcher who never has made the majors in 10 years, Diegomar Markwell. But eventually the big bats wore him down, the Dominicans scoring all their runs in an explosive fifth of line drives and pop flies.
  
“They put some great at-bats on us today,” said Meulens.
    
On the mound, they put some great pitches on them. The Netherlands got a run without a hit in the first off Edison Volquez. And then no more runs and only four hits off Volquez and three other Dominicans, including Fernando Rodney of the Tampa Bay Rays, who recorded his sixth save in this WBC.
  
“I think they only had a couple of starters,” said Meulens, “and then most of their guys were bullpen guys. It showed today.”
   
The Netherlands won both of its games against the Dominican in the 2009 WBC, but that domination was destined to end. “They came to play this year,” said Meulens. “And that’s why they’re undefeated. And that’s why they’re going to the finals.”
 
Japan won the only two other World Baseball Classics. Now the championship will go from the Far East to the tropics. “Whoever wins,” said Dominican manager Tony Pena, a Yankees coach, “it’s going to be the Caribbeans. It could be Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, but it will belong to the Caribbean.”
   
The Dominican players take the Classic personally. It’s their Olympics, the chance to prove their skills and dedication, to show basically that, at this game, they are the best in the world.
  
“When you’re representing your country, and you’re making your country proud of you, that’s amazing,” said Volquez, the Dominican starter. “That’s awesome.”
  
He’s 29. He knows English well. He’s with the San Diego Padres. But the question was asked in Spanish, so he responded in Spanish, which was then translated.
  
“This is not something you can do every day,” Volquez continued. “And we’re able to win. It’s like we’ve been on this one mission, just winning and winning as a team.”
 
Winning as a team. Winning as a nation. Winning because it means so much.
   
“I think we have a lot of unity on this team,” said Pena. “That has brought us to where we are right now.”
   
They’re one game from the championship of the World Baseball Classic. That might not mean a lot in the United States, but it means everything to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.