Dominican player of the week: Hanley Ramirez

Hanley Ramirez hit .500 with 4 HR and 6 RBI, and that wins him the Dominican Baseball Guy Dominican player of the week award.

Hanley had a down year last year, but has made the transition to third base this season, and he is having a good year at the plate thus far. Ramirez, and fellow Dominican player Jose Reyes have the Marlins in the playoff chase in the National League East.

He is from Samana, an awesome Dominican beach town on the east coast of the country.

Carlos Gomez of the Brewers also received consideration for the NL player of the week award. He is from  Santiago, Dominican Republic.

Dominican player of the week Hanley Ramirez, by SD Dirk on Flick

Baseball in the Dominican Republic has equal with Football in Samoa

Any reader of The Dominican Baseball Guy and any fan of Major League Baseball undoubtedly knows that baseball rules in the Dominican Republic.  Baseball is the culture in the Dominican Republic.  Kids, adults, men, and women all play the game.  Men want to be professional baseball players and women want to date them.  In very few countries does one sport dominate the culture of the country as it does with baseball in the Dominican Republic.

But in one place there is a sport that influences the national culture just like baseball does in the Dominican Republic, and that is with American Football in American Samoa.  Noted sports historian Rob Ruck tackles the subject of Football in Samoa in his latest book, Fa’a Samoa: So close to God, so far from the United States: American Football in American Samoa and Among the Diaspora. And he will speak on the book this Wednesday at the University of West Virginia.

Ruck has written extensively on baseball in the Dominican Republic, so he knows how a sport can affect the culture of a country.  His book, The Tropic of Baseball, is one of the seminal works on baseball in the Dominican Republic.  The Dominican Baseball Guy has blogged on Rob Ruck and other Dominican baseball books several times previously.

Anyone interested in sports and culture should get this latest work on Samoan Football from Rob Ruck, as well as his previous work The Tropic of Baseball, or any of his work that focuses extensively on sports and cultural history.

Baseball in the Dominican Republic

Well, this is certainly not the Dominican Baseball Guy's most insightful post on baseball in the Dominican Republic.  But this story needs to be highlighted and shared, even if it is just plain vanilla.

Islands magazine just released an article entitled Going Deep: Baseball in the Dominican Republic.  Also, see the photo gallery associated with the article on baseball in the Dominican Republic.  It is the typical story one sees about baseball in the Dominican Republic...kids start young, they play often with hand crafted equipment, and they play as long as they can.

The article does have some nice anecdotes about playing baseball in the north of the country. The author does a good job of explaining how the game is 'the game is at the dinner table, in the parking lot, on the beach, and [even in the] bartender’s hair.' The article ends as the author plays a makeshift game with 25 other teens and adults, Dominicans and and some foreigners.

Dominicans play the game of baseball anywhere, anytime, and from birth until they can no longer do it.

Baseball in the Dominican Republic featured in March 2012 issue of Islands