Baseball Musings: Puerto Rican Decline

December 26, 2004

Puerto Rican Decline

The Washington Times looks at the declining interest in baseball in Puerto Rico. Some blame the Expos.

Puerto Rico has long been known as a baseball-mad country with an enduring legacy that runs from Orlando Cepeda and Clemente — an icon on the island — through Roberto Alomar and Bernie Williams and on to Carlos Beltran and Nationals second baseman Jose Vidro. That legacy, however, has languished in recent years, with other sports growing in popularity and the overall level of baseball declining.
Bringing the Expos to San Juan seemed the perfect remedy for that lagging interest, as well as an opportunity for Major League Baseball to showcase its Latin fan base. But rather than resuscitating the sport there, the Expos left a baseball vacuum in their wake.

"It has had a devastating effect," Puerto Rican Winter League president Joaquin Monserrate said of the Expos' two-year stay. "Major League Baseball deflated this market without any kind of warning or cooperation with the Winter League."

Others blame the winter league itself.

Edwin Rodriguez, however, places the blame at the feet of Winter League officials. Rodriguez, a former Carolina general manager, runs www.hitboricua.com, the league's unofficial Web site. He said the problem is not with the Expos' departure but with a league that operates only five months a year and has not done enough to showcase players.
"Saying the Expos are the reason for the poor attendance — that's not true," Rodriguez said. "People who say that are looking for an excuse."

For years, any notion baseball could lose its foothold on the island was unthinkable. Puerto Rico dominated the Caribbean World Series — played among the top teams from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic — in the 1950s, won four titles in the 1970s and took three of four from 1992 through 1995. The World Series was not played in the 1960s.

That background led many to believe that, although the Winter League had been in decline since the mid-1990s, Puerto Ricans would rally behind the Expos and draw baseball back into the national consciousness.

It hasn't happened.

Others go on to blame a growing interest in basketball, the ability to watch big league teams on cable TV and a growing list of activities for youngsters for the decline. All are probably right in one way or another. It's a problem the US minor leagues have had for years. How do you draw fans to an inferior product when the superior one is so easily available?

Posted by David Pinto at 10:03 AM | Baseball | TrackBack (0)

Comments

Although this input, I know it has nothing to do with the proffesional level, it made a major impact on the vision of a few of us that fly to PR to visit every year. For me it is very hard to believe our comments on what we see every time we get in town to the ball parks that we used to play on.
We are blaming and pointing the finger at different groups "NOW" instead of looking at the previous 10 years. I blame the decline on the video games. I was born and raced in HatoRey, played lots of baseball when I lived in PR, and at 51, I still play and coach lots of kids here in Virginia and Maryland. In the 60s and 70s there were no video games to take the kids away from the baseball field. My mother had to drag me off the field just to get me to come home to eat dinner. Today.., it is so sad that parents preffer to watch their kids play in front of a TV all weekend instead of getting them involved with sports. This is nothing new. It is a trend of the past decade since the video games started gaining the kids interest. We just can't blame any of the proffesional organizations now. We need to get the kids interest back in the sport. I have noticed the same problem in the states. The quality players in the sport is also declining here. If you all noticed, most of the best players come from poor countries where they have nothing. They want to make it big, so they work hard in playing the game, and most of them succeed. It is to me very sad when I go to visit my family in Puerto Rico, and go the parks. Most of the fields I used to sit and wait a few hours to play a game, now just lay in darkness or the field is not taken care of because no one uses them. At times I wonder if we will see another Clemente out in the majors sometime soon. I just hope I am alive to see it with my own eyes. We do have some talent coming from the island now. A few years from now is what I am worrying about. I am very proud to say I saw Clemente and Cepeda play. Those where glory days, and I hope those glory days return to my islita.

Posted by: Edgar Torres at November 30, 2005 12:51 PM

roberto was the best..i watched him play his first game at forbes field..i'm a pittsburgh guy who now lives in indiana...i hope for the sake of your people that another roberto comes along..i'm an entertainer and when he passed i wrote a song called the ballad of roberto..i sang on roberto clemente day at 3 rivers in 1973..my second son is named after roberto and i have missed him since that trajic new years eve...i'd love to see the stadium as i was invited to his house back in 1973 and vera was so kind....roberto was my hero as a baseball player but moreso as a fine man...

Posted by: paul new at October 27, 2006 04:06 AM

I agree that there are many other recreational activities that are taking away from kids wanting to play this wonderful game. I feel happy & sad for other fellow hispanics in other countries because they love the game and work hard to strive in it, but sad because it is out of poverty and neccessity that they do this. The Puertorican gov't as well as major league players need to get involved in bringing baseball back to PR, it is the national sport and it is dying. There is so much talent on that tiny island. Parents also need to encourage their kids to play sports instead of playing video games, it all stars at home.

Posted by: Rob at December 27, 2006 02:54 PM