Marines playing baseball with Dominican kids, ninos Dominicanos jugando pelota

The Dominican Baseball Guy came across this photo on his google alerts for Dominican baseball news, and what a shot it is:

American BI's play baseball with Dominican kids, from US National Archives

The shot was taken in 1965 during the US occupation of the Dominican Republic.  The occupation was ordered by President LBJ as he feared a "second Cuba on America's doorstep."  The USA also occupied the country from 1916-1924 with plans to make it a protectorate.  

There were early theories that the Americans brought the game during the first of these occupations.  Nowadays, most agree that the Aloma brothers from Cuba brought the game to the island around the turn of the century.  However, there are many stories of classic games between the USA military and Dominican teams during both of these occupations, and these troops surely influenced the game on the island through these organized games and pickup games such as in the picture here.

The picture comes from the US National Archives and the Dominican Baseball Guy will be scouring the archives for more photos like this one.

Dominican Street Baseball Pictures

The Dominican Baseball Guy posted a few of these pictures under a previous post labeled Dominican Street Baseball, and they are all available at The Dominican Baseball Guy Facebook page, but most of these have yet to appear on the blog.  So, here are some pictures of kids playing baseball in San Francisco de Macoris from October-November 15, 2009:

Typical Streetball Game in Dominican Republic

In the states someone says street ball and people automatically think of basketball. There is lots of basketball played in the streets of the Dominican Republic, but a lot more baseball. Baseball does not require a basket, and bats, balls, and bases can be made out of anything. I have seen games being played with one, two, and three bases, one-on-one, two-on-two, and five-on-five, with bats made of metal, tree branches, and people's hands.

There is almost always a lot of things going on during the games (kids coming and going, changing teams, dancing for a bit, stoppages in games for passing cars). Here is a common scene of a baseball game being played in the street (see more photos at the Dominican Baseball Guy Facebook page):

And here is a video (see the other Dominican Baseball Guy video's on his youtube channel):

Dominican Baseball Guy on Facebook

The Dominican Baseball Guy has been on Facebook for a few weeks, but just added the majority of his photos thus far. They are of the Gigantes games, softball games in the DR, and pickup games and kids playing in the streets.

The softball games are pretty entertaining:

I was starting to think that all the media and books talking about kids playing baseball on every street corner was entirely untrue. This after being in Santo Domingo and in the center of Santiago and San Francisco de Macoris. But as you move away from the city centers, where there is less to do, it is true that there is a game on every street, corner, and alley:

The Dominican Baseball Guy has 6 albums up so far, and some pictures from the Winter League games. Should have a lot more to come.