Getting to the majors comes easy for some, but most others simply have to first pay their dues.
One pitch … one hit … one catch … one game … at a time …
Venezuelan native Franklin Primera is one of the rookies doing it the hard way, all based on a dream – playing one day on the grass of Fenway Park in his adopted homeland.
Actually Dreamland, where many players in their teens from third-world countries hope to get.It all starts for them playing sandlot ball a world away as little boys, mimicking the big leaguers in the United States of America they see on TV.
Primera got a call from a Red Sox recruiter two years ago, when he was just 17 years old.
Imagine the feeling, getting a call from an American baseball team at age 17, in Venezuela, running to your mother, screaming with excitement.
America is where boys living in the most impoverished countries in the world want to come.
Primera got the chance of a lifetime. He came to America, not to play in the bigs right off the bat, but to dream.
To do nothing but dream.
He signed a contract at age 17, not to play in Fenway Park.
Not even to play in Triple-A Worcester, nor in Double-A Portland, not even in what’s known as a Low-A affiliate, with an unknown team out of Salem, Virginia called the Salem Ridge Yaks.
No, Primera started in the Florida Complex League, a rookie-level Minor League Baseball circuit that’s as low as one gets in professional baseball.
“Primera continues to dominate the league,” Chris Hatfield of SoxProspects.com reported recently. “In 28 games, he is hitting .461/.581/.798 with eight home runs, leading the circuit in all three of the slash categories.”
Primera recently celebrated his 19th birthday by going 2 for 4 with a double.
Could his mother back home be any more proud? Not on your life.
Primera’s hot bat has earned him a trip out of basement ball after being promoted to the Red Sox’s Low-A affiliate, the Ridge Yaks, as reported by Hatfield.
The Ridge Yaks today, maybe the Portland Sea Dogs tomorrow, then Worcester the next day, then … Fenway Park?
Baseball is all about dreams, a game of opportunity for boys from undeveloped countries who speak no English, whose homelands, sadly, offer no future for them.
The one promise they have is making it in America, even if it feels like it is taking a lifetime.
Starting out at the lowest rung, the Florida Complex League, is a difficult way of life.
But some league graduates have eventually made it not only to the majors, but to the Hall of Fame.
At least one Hall of Fame inductee has started his career playing for the league’s Red Sox affiliate, Jeff Bagwell in 1989.
Others, such as Nomar Garciaparra, have ended up as multiple-time MLB all stars.
Baseball is all about a dream.
