GONZÁLEZ: Hey everybody, this is Ana González. You’re listening to Mosaic, a podcast about immigration and identity. There’s a point on Broad Street in South Providence – it might be just after the Burger King or maybe when the road splits into Broad and Elmwood – where Providence becomes a Dominican town. Broad Street turns into La Broa’, conamed Juan Pablo Duarte Boulevard after the father of Dominican independence. There are more people on the street, more barbershops, more sound systems, more bodegas, and an endless line for the buffet at La Gran Parada. And if you see kids playing a sport, it’s not basketball or soccer.

FRANKLIN: In the Dominican culture, period, baseball is it.

GONZÁLEZ: And that Dominican baseball culture? It’s powerful. Today, on Mosaic, los peloteros de PSL

ARTURO: ¿Cómo describiría el juego de béisbol? ¿Qué le digo? Dentro del terreno de baseball, tu encuentras muchos amigos que, más que tus amigos, son tu familia. Te enseña mucho sobre la disciplina, el respeto, y enseña a disfrutar lo que tú haces.

ENGLISH: How would I describe the game of baseball? What can I say? In the world of baseball, you find a lot of friends who become more than friends. They’re family. It teaches you a lot about discipline, respect, and it teaches you to enjoy what you do.

GONZÁLEZ: That’s Arturo Reyes. He came to Providence last year from Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. And on this dead cold December night, he’s standing on the outside of a mesh batting cage in a practice facility in Warwick, Rhode Island, waiting on one of his teammates from Providence Sports and Leadership to finish up hitting.

ARTURO: Ahora mismo estamos en una práctica de bateo. Estamos bateando “tee”. Eso es para mantener las manos por dentro del swing.

ENGLISH: Right now we’re in a batting practice. We are batting tee. This is to keep your hands inside of the swing.

GONZÁLEZ: Arturo is one the stars of PSL’s 18 and under travel team. He’s a six-foot-six left-handed slugger and first baseman. His coaches say he has a chance of going pro, becoming a real pelotero. At the very least, he’s hoping to get recruited by colleges, and that’s something that’s not possible in the Dominican Republic.

RUBEN: Allá, los que van a la universidad sólo los que tienen dinero.

ENGLISH: There, the only people who go to college are those who have a lot of money.

GONZÁLEZ: This is Ruben Ogando, one of Arturo’s teammates. He also immigrated from the DR about three years ago.

RUBEN: Que no hay mucha oportunidad y no dan tanta scholarship como aquí.

ENGLISH: There’s not a lot of opportunity and they don’t give out as many scholarships like they do here.

GONZÁLEZ: Ruben is a senior at Hope High and plays left field for PSL. He has his eyes set on next year.

RUBEN: Me gustaría the University of Rhode Island. I would like. But I don’t know...De verdad, sí, un poco difícil porque no estamos seguro de si vamos a jugar o no. Entonces, si no jugamos, habría menos oportunidades de que me vean, y que algún coche me reclute.

ENGLISH: I would like the University of Rhode Island. I would like. But I don’t know. It has been a little difficult because we are not sure if we are going to play or not. So, if we don’t play, there will be fewer opportunities for people to see me, and for a coach to recruit me.

GONZÁLEZ: The pandemic has changed everything in the world of competitive youth sports. It modified practices, canceled games, and made the college recruiting process more unknown. Nobody knows that better than Franklin Salcedo, the head coach of the 18 and under team that Arturo and Ruben play for.

FRANKLIN: It has been tough for the seniors because everything is at a standstill. A lot of the college players redshirted. What that means is they have an extra year of eligibility. So that hurts seniors, juniors. It hurts everybody down the line.

GONZÁLEZ: But Franklin is committed to these kids, some of whom he’s known since they were 12 and 13 years old. He arranges clandestine practices, like this one, and organizes regular trips to local gyms, when they’re open and public parks to run wind sprints. Because Dominican baseball culture is in his blood, and it doesn’t stop for anything, not even a pandemic.

FRANKLIN: Since I was a boy, my dad, you know, always had me and my two younger brothers in the baseball field, you know, giving us practice. In the Dominican culture, period, baseball is it.

GONZÁLEZ: To understand how Dominican baseball culture has been transplanted from its Caribbean home to this small New England state, you need to get to know Kennedy Arias.

KENNEDY: I play baseball when I was younger. I come from Dominican Republic, a really, really poor country where you don't have opportunity.

GONZÁLEZ: Here in Providence, Kennedy is a staple of the Dominican community. He works as a book binder at Brown University, and in his spare time, he organizes food drives and hosts a radio show on one of the Spanish language radio stations, where he tells motivational stories. He loves connecting people. Back in the Dominican Republic, Kennedy grew up between Santo Domingo and San Cristobal in the 1960s and 70s. His favorite thing to do was play baseball. And he was good.

KENNEDY: I play infield. When I play baseball, I remember that I play for Manuel Mota little league. And they decided to have a travel team. And I remember that they select me to go to LA. But at that time, my father will say that, “I don't believe in baseball. You need to go to work.” He had a construction company

GONZÁLEZ: So, Kennedy puts his baseball dreams on the shelf and pursues a life of work. He immigrates to the US in 1990, finds a job, gets married, and starts a family in the growing Dominican community in South Providence. He doesn’t play baseball again until 1997, when his son is old enough to carry on the tradition.

KENNEDY: I started with Roberto Clemente little league. I want to be, like, volunteer. My son play in this league, and they need coach.

GONZÁLEZ: But Kennedy realizes pretty quickly that the baseball training available to kids in his South Providence neighborhood is different from what he received in the DR. The little league only goes so far.

KENNEDY: Something that happened is that when they come from the little league, we don't have a local league when they can play like 13, 14, 15.

GONZÁLEZ: Once the kids hit middle school, there are no baseball opportunities for them outside of their public school teams, which, in South Providence, are underfunded and understaffed. They don’t have the level of coaching that Kennedy grew up with in the DR. But the Dominican immigrant community in Providence is growing every year, and the families are bringing with them an aggressive baseball culture.

See, since the 1990s, the Dominican Republic has become a hotbed for Major League Baseball stars. The island nation has produced more MLB players than any other country outside of the US. Every single MLB team has an academy on the island where they recruit and sign teenage players. In Providence, there are adults who have gone through that system and played professionally in the US and the DR. Kennedy is friends with them.

KENNEDY: Something that they do they play softball. On every Sunday, I go to you know, to see them. And I say, ‘Listen, I need help. I would like to you to volunteer.’ They say, ‘What you want?’ I say Little League.’ They say ‘No, I don't wanna teach kids because the youth are difficult.

GONZÁLEZ: A lot of these players grew up in the DR with that ultra-competitive, major league mindset. For them, there’s no other option than becoming a professional pelotero. Kennedy thinks that mentality is limiting.

KENNEDY: And something that I see over here is that you have everything. The kids have, you know, opportunity to do what they want to do. And something that I try to be, not just a good coach. I want to be a good mentor. You know, some people need motivations to them, and to explain to them, you know, how important it is to have education and to play any sport.

GONZÁLEZ: So, he starts coaching and mentoring kids by himself in a park on the weekends free of charge. He does this pretty consistently throughout 2005 and 2006. That’s where Bill Flaherty first sees him.

BILL: One day, I ... looked out the back window. It's overlooks Mary Fogarty ...And Kennedy was out there with like, way too many kids by himself.

GONZÁLEZ: Bill Flaherty is a software engineer who dabbles in real estate, flipping houses on the Southside of Providence. He looks like a typical baseball coach: buzz cut, hoodies on his days off, a white suburban dad.

BILL: And you know, you go into South Providence, everybody thinks I'm a cop.

GONZÁLEZ: Bill grew up playing baseball, too. But in a totally different environment than Kennedy and the kids he’s coaching.

BILL: I come from an upwardly mobile kind of suburbia out of the Washington DC area. That’s where I grew up. I went to a very prestigious private school. I played a little bit of college baseball. I love the game.

GONZÁLEZ: So, when Bill sees Kennedy hitting balls to kids in an elementary school field, he knows what he’s doing. He watches Kennedy coach for a couple of weekends.

BILL: Obviously, he didn't have the resources, he didn't have additional help... And I just one day, I went down there, introduced myself and just, kind of, things took off from there.

GONZÁLEZ: Kennedy and Bill are an odd pair. They’re both so deeply entrenched in their worlds that they probably would never have even met if it wasn’t for baseball. But they both know that there’s untapped potential in these kids. And while Kennedy knows the community and the culture, Bill knows the world of competitive youth sports.

BILL: I had become aware of what's going on as far as travel baseball and showcasing kids and getting in front of college recruiters and you know, even professional scouts. So I said, let's go ahead and start building some structure around this organization, and get these kids out on the road and start playing other teams.

GONZÁLEZ: Youth travel teams are big business. Plain and simple. The teams that Bill suggests playing come from the wealthiest towns in New England, where families easily spend 3,4, sometimes $5,000 for a single summer of training, travel and tournament fees. That’s just not possible for the players Kennedy has been coaching. So, they begin to fundraise. First, they get money from local businesses, donations from the community, they host a golf tournament. Kennedy gets grants from the city and buy-in from some local politicians and police. They raise tens of thousands of dollars that first year. By the summer of 2007, they have more than enough to cover the costs of equipment, facility rentals, travel and tournament fees. Soon, New England gets to see what Providence Sports and Leadership can do.

GONZÁLEZ: For the next 4 years, Bill and Kennedy host practices for their growing roster almost every day of the summer, fall, and winter. They enter as many tournaments as they can afford. They’re traveling to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Maine, playing against some of the best teams in the country, let alone New England. They’re winning. And they’re gaining the trust of the community.

BILL: I spent a lot of time eating pastelitos, rice and beans in people's kitchens trying to build up credibility and trying to get them to trust me...But then families and kids start to get it. They understood what we were trying to do.

GONZÁLEZ: Families start to understand that this organization is about more than baseball. It’s about building futures for these kids beyond the field.

KENNEDY: My goal now is not help kids to go to play prof. Not really really. My goal is maybe, you know, combine education and the sport to try to get a scholarship.

GONZÁLEZ: More kids sign up for PSL, and they get more funding. In 2011, PSL gets their official 501(c)3 status as a nonprofit and are able to hire part-time coaches. They bring on Franklin as the head coach of the 18 and under team. That takes PSL to the next level.

KENNEDY: And I remember in 2011 we participate in the Senior Classic that URI prepared. And we was champion. We won this tournament. After that, we started, you know, to bring the kids to the tryout to the college and some universities.

GONZÁLEZ: PSL gets players recruited to Wheaton College, University of Maine, Brandeis University, University of Rhode Island, Johnson and Wales, and a handful of other programs. To this day, they’ve sent close to 50 kids to college to play baseball. Most on scholarships.

BILL: I've never been more proud to represent a group of kids in whatever form that may be. If we're sitting in a classroom talking to different college coaches about the college experience in college baseball or out on the field in a tournament, or what have you, but it's totally changed my life

GONZÁLEZ: None of PSL’s success comes without challenges, though. When you bring a group of mostly Dominican teeangers from the South Side of Providence to play against teams in Barrington or Maine or Western Massachusetts, they’re going to stick out. Franklin knows this.

FRANKLIN: My team, I love when they're loud. I love when they're cheering and stuff like that. And that can be very intimidating to others, especially, you know, other communities that are not used to that. Like we have guys with, it's an instrument called the guïra. We have a tambora. We bring speakers, like, we like to have fun, you know, because we work so hard.

GONZÁLEZ: Sometimes, it's just weird looks when the guys yell Spanish cheers or bump bachata on the speakers. Other times it’s more serious.

BILL: Race is often front and center with the way people interact with us, the way they see our program…. And I'll never forget, we were playing in a tournament,...and I was over coaching third base, and the other team’s dugout was right off the third base side, and they said, ‘Oh, what's Providence Sports and Leadership?’ And some kid said, ‘You know, it sounds like a good landscaping company.’ And I could tell right away exactly what they're talking about.

GONZÁLEZ: It’s not just the way kids, coaches and umpires might speak on the field: the pressures off the field of living in low-income neighborhoods and immigrant families affect the PSL players all year long.

BILL: Somebody will miss practice and they'll come back the next day, I say, ‘Why weren't you a practice?’ And they say, ‘Oh, I had to go to the doctor with my grandmother to translate for her.’ ‘Why’d you miss the game or the practice?’ ‘Oh, I had to go work.’ And another thing that came up: I remember Franklin said, ‘Bill, I got this problem. I got this kid, he's out on the street, his family just got evicted, like, what do we do?’ And I don't know. Those are things that I just–You know, I know the game of baseball. I know how to coach it pretty well. But that’s such a small part of what we’re doing here.

SALOMON: I grew up in a tough neighborhood. There was a lot of gang violence, a lot of shooting around.

GONZÁLEZ: This is Salomon Lluveres. He’s been playing with PSL since he was 12 years old, and now he’s one of the captains of the 18 and under team.

SALOMON: I seen, like, my friends, like, go to jail. We're not close anymore….We grew up together playing baseball. They just took the bad route. I try to manage to get away from that. And try to do the most that I can and stay in a positive way. And I let baseball take it from there.

GONZÁLEZ: Salomon is soft-spoken. He says being a captain has helped him work on his public speaking. Now that he’s a senior, Salomon is looking at prospective college baseball programs.

SALOMON: My dream is to become a professional baseball player and play baseball in college and do the most that I can to make it there. PSL, they've been helping me a lot with getting me out there. We're talking to a couple colleges...So we'll see from here what goes on .

GONZÁLEZ: And even though Kennedy, BIll, and Franklin have tried to temper the big league dreams of all of their players and their families, Salomon obviously still hopes to go pro.

SALOMON: I have two sisters. That's a big part of it, you know. I'm trying to get them out of here. So then they could live a lavish life.

GONZÁLEZ: Playing for Providence Sports and Leadership is a great opportunity for kids like Salomon, but I wouldn’t describe it as “lavish”. For starters, the organization has never had a dedicated practice space. For nearly 10 years, they would move from baseball diamonds in public parks to the gym at Elmwood Community Center once the weather turned cold. But, in 2019, inspectors found asbestos, mold, a leaky roof, and a broken boiler. The city decided the repairs needed for the center to be safe were too costly. So, they closed it.

BILL: We've had conversations with the city about it. And they look at us as like any other kind of youth athletic organization. But we're not. I mean, give me another youth athletic organization in the city of Providence, who are pumping out college athletes year after year. There are no other organizations like that... And the city just doesn't see it that way. They just see it as “Oh, they can throw a ball out and some equipment and have some fun” – this, that, the whole bit. But we deserve better.

KENNEDY: I feel bad because we need more support from the city, from the state. But between you and I, I don't know but I believe that the high class people don't like that our kids get a degree and go to college. I don't know why they don't want to invest, you know, in better sport insulation to try to take our kids from the street. Because I believe that if we have people that really really pay attention to the youth, maybe we don't have a lot of crime on the street. You know, a lot of kids on the jail....But we need to continue to try.

GONZÁLEZ: 5 months after Elmwood Community Center closes, the COVID-19 pandemic begins. Youth sports are on lockdown for weeks, and when they are able to start back up, baseball is considered a level 2, moderate-risk sport. PSL teams have to split up among Providence’s nine other rec centers to accommodate both social distancing rules and the lack of practice space. It’s tough.

FRANKLIN: But in the beginning of the year, when the pandemic was starting, and, when we didn't have a home, we practiced less. Because to use these rec centers, we had to coordinate with them and their times. And we have to make sure that our players also had that time availability.

GONZÁLEZ: The 18 and under team struggles in the 2020 season. They lose more games than they did in 2019. The teams they’re up against haven’t lost as much practice time because they aren’t relying on community rec centers and public parks for space. On top of that, latino families in Rhode Island have been the hardest hit by the pandemic. A handful of PSL players tested positive, so did Kennedy and Franklin. Even more have had family members get the virus.

But for the peloteros in PSL, if they have the chance to play baseball – whether it’s in a tournament, a moldy rec center, or a batting cage in a sleepy suburban plaza in the dead of winter – the rest of the world melts away.

GONZÁLEZ: On this warm September day, it still feels like summer as the dust hangs over the baseball diamond at Richardson park. Kennedy stands on the pitcher's mound, and hits a ball to the outfield.

None of the players scattered throughout the field are more than 16 years old, but they work like a well-oiled machine. Center field scoops the grounder, passes to first, who passes to third, who passes home to the catcher. Kennedy hits another ball with ease, straight to right field, and the kids do it again. The dads next to me behind home plate tell the catcher to clean the plate, keep his hands soft. [límpialo]

Soon, Kennedy hands the practice over to another coach, and he finds me behind the chain link fence.

KENNEDY: Ana.

GONZÁLEZ: Yeah.

KENNEDY: Let me introduce to you former major league player. He played for Philadelphia...He had like, baseball academy in Dominican Republic.

GONZÁLEZ: Oh, wow.

KENNEDY: Now he travel and move with his family to United States. And now he is the mentor of the 12 and under….

GONZÁLEZ: We walk over to an older man who’s whipping ground balls onto the grass in front of a line of kids who are between 9 and 12 years old.

KENNEDY: Ministro!

ANTONIO: Señor. Ella es Ana. Ella es una periodista tiene un programa de radio...

ANA: ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?

ANTONIO: Bien.

ANA: ¿Cómo te llamas?

ANTONIO: Yo me llamo Antonio Linares. Yo tengo cinco años en Providence con mi familia. Bueno, aquí con Kennedy, fue algo en el verano, pero yo tengo 39 años dando práctica en Santo Domingo con una liga mía.

ENGLISH: My name is Antonio Linares. I’ve been in Providence for five years with my family. I’ve been [coaching] here with Kennedy since the summer, but I spent 39 years coaching in Santo Domingo with my own league.

GONZÁLEZ: Antonio grew up in a baseball family in the baseball capital of the Dominican Republic, San Pedro de Marcoris. His older brother, Rufino Linares, played in the MLB. Antonio played in the minor leagues for a few seasons before returning home and becoming a coach. He tells me about all of the baseball players, or peloteros, he coached back in the Dominican Republic that went pro in the US.

ANTONIO: Alfonso Soriano pasó por nuestra liga también. Yamaico Navarro, Joel Guzmán, Alexi Ogando, Miguel Mejía con los Cardenales de San Luis.

GONZÁLEZ: Antonio returns to the line of kids, aged 9-12. Some of them are dwarfed by their gloves that are just a little too big for them. But all are ready to catch the ball, to continue the tradition that their fathers and grandfathers brought with them to this country, to become peloteros.

Mosaic is a production of the Public’s Radio. With production help from Aaron Selbig and James Baumgartner. With additional support this episode from John Bender and Jeff Matteis. Our original music is by Bryn Bliska. Our intern is Michelle Liu. Torey Malatia is the general manager of the Public’s Radio. I’m Ana González. Thanks for listening and supporting this podcast. If you want to learn more about Mosaic, visit mosaicpodcast.org or subscribe to Mosaic wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, if you leave a comment and a rating, that really helps us out. See you next time!

Support for this podcast comes from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security at carnegie.org.