Dominican baseball player Aramis Ramirez remembers his baseball idols growing up in the Dominican Republic

A group of journalism students at Arizona State University has put together the Peanuts and Cracker Jacks blog.  The blog is produced for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and covers the Brewers Spring Training.

A recent post had the Brewers remembering their own idols.  The Dominican Baseball Guy was of course drawn to the comments from one of the Brewers' Dominican baseball players, Aramis Ramirez.  He is entering his 15th year in the majors and 1st with the Brewers.

Dominican player Ramirez counts fellow Dominican George Bell as his biggest influence growing up:

“Actually, that was the year that I started playing baseball because he won the MVP in the American League,” Ramirez said. “Everybody was talking about him in my hometown, he was amazing.”

Aramis Ramirez is from Santo Domingo and George Bell is from San Pedro de Macoris. The whole country was probably crazy of native Dominican baseball player Bell and his MVP run in 1987 though.

Dominican player Aramis Ramirez last year with the Cubs, photo by notmargaret on Flickr