Read this column fast.
Because by the time you get to the end, aging-by-the-minute Esmailyn “Smiley” Gonzalez could turn out to be 25, instead of 23 or just 19, and trying on a third name for good measured. Turns out the $1.4-million bonus baby the Washington Nationals thought they signed as a 16-year-old in July 2006, was at least 19 at the time and actually named Carlos David Alvarez Lugo. Or not.
For most people – actors, industrialists, world leaders and lately even rappers – lying about your age isn’t a federal crime. This time it could turn out to be.
“This is going to have serious repercussions,” Nationals president Stan Kasten cautioned Wednesday. “I have people examining all possible avenues of recourse, with regards to any legal and financial concerns.”
Here’s what made Kasten so mad: Players from all over the globe – but especially south of the U.S. border – have been caught lying about their age to major league clubs since MLB opened an office in the Dominican Republic in 2000, in large part to choke off the illicit trafficking.
round fact-checking documents would be enough of a deterrent. And if that wasn’t, well, the ruckus raised after Little Leaguer Danny Almonte – of the Bronx via the Dominican Republic – was busted in 2001 should have been.
Not even close. And while a number of ballplayers from Cuba, Mexico and other parts of Latin America have come under scrutiny for fudging their age – Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and Fernando Valenzuela were the most prominent suspects – the Dominican Republic has enough suspects so that AARP might be tempted to open a local chapter.
In the last few years, more than a dozen Dominicans still active in the major leagues have had to correct their ages upward, including bona fide stars like Rafael Furcal, Miguel Tejada and Bartolo Colon. At least one other, Adrian Beltre, had to adjust his downward. Oddly enough, it’s part of the same phenomenon.
Desperate to escape crushing poverty, promising kids growing up in the Dominican fall under the influence of street agents – called “buscones” – and get caught up in schemes that quickly spiral out of their control. Sometimes, the kids add a year or more just to be old enough to sign a contract; other times, it goes a step further, requiring a fake identity.
So where’s the harm?
In the case of Gonzalez/Lugo, it was paying out a big bonus based on potential.
won the league batting title, finished second in on-base percentage and runs scored, third in RBIs and hits and was named MVP. Good as those numbers look, they lose plenty of their gloss when it turns out you’re four years older than the competition at a crucial stage in a player’s development.
There’s plenty of harm as well at the other end of the age spectrum, when a ballclub tries to decide, as in the case of Tejada, how many productive years an aging slugger or pitcher has left. Since it’s a calculated gamble to begin with, a year or two difference in real age quickly translates into millions of dollars.
“I didn’t know anything about this,” Stanley King, the agent for Gonzalez/Lugo told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I never had any indication that he was anyone other than Esmailyn. I feel bad for the organization, and I feel bad for the kid.
“This thing,” King added, “is unraveling like a Greek tragedy.”
A farce might be more like it.
While the Nationals are hardly the only major league club to get taken in by the age scam, they might just be the most bumbling. They were shrewd enough to extort money from the local citizenry to build a new ballpark, but couldn’t field a team good enough to fill it up on a regular basis, losing a major league-worst 102 games.
n easily forgettable, evidenced by middle-of-the-pack attendance figures, despite the new park, and some of the lowest local TV ratings in the game.
But if Gonzalez/Lugo ever turns out to be the real deal – assuming the Nationals don’t have him deported – the club can still have the last laugh, stealing a phrase made famous by another former major leaguer who made his debut (we think) at 48.
“Age is a question of mind over matter,” Satchel Paige noted. “If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”
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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitkeap.org
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