When the Indians signed Hernandez, they believed he was 17, but he was really The lengths to which the buscones and others have gone to deceive MLB teams is legendary.
Sometimes towns, schools and hospitals are involved in the scam. All to make a player a couple of years younger and fatten his signing bonus. Last year the Dominican Republic, a tiny Caribbean island, saw 86 of its native sons open the season on big-league rosters. No other country outside the United States supplied more players to The Show.
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The Dominican has always been a buyer's beware market. Some scouts call it the wild west in terms of player acquisition. The talent is cheap and plentiful, and not restricted by the annual MLB annual draft. Such conditions spawned a culture of fraud that knew no bounds. Things began to change after the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. The U.
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Indians pitcher Bartolo Colon went from 26 to 28 and his brother Jose, in the minors with the Tribe, went from 23 to How is this story going to end for Hernandez? If you're worried about not seeing him standing on the mound with sweat dropping off the bill of his cap on a hot July night, calm yourself. At some point before the Indians break camp on April 2, according to sources, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to grant him a waiver to join the Indians.
He could still face a suspension by Commissioner Bud Selig. When he was arrested on Jan. The baseball grapevine in the Dominican had been buzzing for over a year about his true identity. A year ago, a story in a Dominican newspaper claimed that the Fausto Carmona pitching for the Indians was an impostor. She said Roberto Hernandez used the birth certificate to sign with the Indians. She said she once talked to the real Fausto Carmona, warning him about the potential danger, but he did not seem concerned about the situation.
She said the real Fausto Carmona told her that he had assumed another name. Acting on this and other information gathered by MLB investigators, the Dominican police were waiting for Carmona outside the U. He was released Jan. Hernandez, according to sources close to the investigation, has been cooperating with Dominican and U. He had no choice if he wanted to continue pitching in the big leagues. William Weissman, U. Hernandez has been visiting independent baseball schools since early February, warning young players about the dangers of changing their names and ages.
Brito says his client tells players that teams will still sign them when they're 18 or Hernandez's teammates call him "Grande" -- Spanish for large -- because he's and weighs close to pounds. As big as he is, Hernandez has made a career of making himself invisible when necessary. In dealing with the media, Hernandez has always done what he's required to do, but little else. He'll talk after one of his starts and then makes himself scarce. Hernandez grew up in a village in Yasama, a mostly agricultural region northeast of Santo Domingo.
He worked on his father's farm and had already traded his name and identity with Carmona when he left home to sign with the Indians. Winston Llenas, who ran the Indians' baseball academy in the Dominican Republic at the time, signed Hernandez. Llenas remembered him as being tall and thin with a strong right arm, good movement on his fastball and a bad set of teeth from eating raw sugar cane. At the Indians' baseball school, Hernandez was quiet, polite and a fast learner. When the Indians paid to get his teeth fixed, he started gaining weight and velocity on his pitches.
He stayed at the school for about a year, played one season in the Dominican Summer League and was off to the States. A college junior in the United States can still be considered a prospect at Traditionally that has not been the case in the Dominican, where MLB teams prefer their prospects to be 16 or The Indians placed Hernandez on the restricted list on Jan.
A documentary on the Dominican's baseball passion. Marlins closer Leo Nunez was charged in September in the Dominican under similar circumstances. His real name is Juan Carlos Oviedo, and he played in the big leagues for the past seven years under an assumed name and age. Oviedo, who is 29 instead of 28, turned himself in to Dominican authorities.
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How many more players are playing under assumed names in the big leagues and minors? Some estimates put the number as high as The Marlins supposedly knew for months about Oviedo's true identity.
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How much did the Indians know about Hernandez? Acta, a Dominican native, knew about the newspaper story from last year, but did not know if it was accurate. Indians' officials said the arrest caught them by surprise, but the next day they traded for Colorado right-hander Kevin Slowey to compete for Hernandez's spot in the starting rotation.
One explanation for catching long-time identity thieves like Hernandez and Oviedo is that MLB's Investigative Unit is doing a good job stopping fraud among younger players. When we sign Rob Manfred, age 16, we want to make sure that we're getting Rob Manfred, age Last year, MLB investigators did background checks on more than players who signed professional contracts in the Dominican Republic.
In about 15 percent, fraud was found. MLB statistics say fraud was discovered in over 60 percent of the players investigated in With fraud among the younger players decreasing, one investigator said they are hearing more and more about older players.
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MLB's investigative unit, scouting bureau, baseball academy, drug prevention program and youth baseball program operate out of the building. The unit includes three full-time investigators, 10 contract investigators and two U. The investigators are subject to lie-detector tests twice a year to guard against fraud. In the past, investigators hired by teams have been involved in the scams they were paid to expose. MLB team employees have also been caught.
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In , officials and scouts from several teams, including David Wilder, senior director of player personnel of the Chicago White Sox, were fired for allegedly skimming bonuses from Dominican prospects. No Dominican player can sign a pro contract unless he's first investigated by MLB.
Since , a player found to be lying about his age or identity faces a one-year suspension. Not all prospects receive complete MLB clearance. That usually involves questions about the player's identity. A common practice among buscones is to move a player from one town to another and have him assume the identity of another family. Buck Perkins bought it for his son for a couple of dollars. He also cited Bill Monroe 's fast playing and vocals as an early influence. Perkins learned more about the guitar from John Westbrook, an African-American field worker in his sixties.
Westbrook advised Perkins to "Get down close to it.
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You can feel it travel down the strangs, come through your head and down to your soul where you live. You can feel it. Let it vib-a-rate. The knots cut his fingers when he would slide to another note, so he began bending the notes, stumbling onto a type of blue note. Since his family was too poor to afford them, Lee McCutcheon, the woman in charge of the band, gave him a new white shirt, cotton pants, a white band cap and a red cape. A new radio that ran on house current rather than a battery and the closeness to Memphis exposed Perkins to a greater variety of music. Perkins and his brother Jay had their first paying job in tips as entertainers at the Cotton Boll tavern on Highway 45, twelve miles south of Jackson, starting on Wednesday nights during late Perkins was 14 years old.
One of the songs they played was an up-tempo country blues shuffle version of Bill Monroe's " Blue Moon of Kentucky ".