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The Dominican Republic Hits the Major Leagues 

The Dominican Republic has been a hotbed for the provenance of great American baseball players. There have been 463 players from the Dominican Republic that have played in professional American baseball, nearly 200 more players than Puerto Rico, which has had 264 players in baseball. Ozzie Virgil was the first Dominican baseball player to play in the Major Leagues, with the New York Giants in 1956. He was followed by Felipe Alou, who made his debut with the San Francisco Giants in 1958.

There have been 15 World Series Championships won largely in part to the efforts of Dominican players, with Stan Javier being the first Dominican to win the World Series with the Oakland Athletics during the 1989 season. Recently, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez have helped the Boston Red Sox to win their past two World Series Championships over the past four years, after going 86 years without a championship win.

Ortiz and Ramirez have been the best power duo in the game’s recent history. Both teammates have averaged more than 40 home runs and 115 RBI’s the past five years. Ortiz has become one of more clutch hitters in the game today, as he has had more game-winning hits over that period of time (87) than anybody else. Distracting from his talent is the criticism Ramirez has endured for his lacking focus and large attitude. However, he seems to always help his team win, so the Red Sox aren’t complaining.

Despite the large presence of Dominican talent in American baseball, there has been only one Hall-of-Famer from the Dominican Republic. Juan Marichal was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1983 after receiving 83.7% of the vote. He played most of his career with the San Francisco Giants, and one season each with the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring.

But there is a very good chance Marichal will be joined by other Dominican players in the coming decades. Sammy Sosa, Pedro Martinez, Ramirez, Ortiz, Alex ("A-Rod") Rodriguez, Vladimir Guerrero, Alfonso Soriano, and Albert Pujols all have a very good shot at going into the Hall of Fame with their stellar careers. Sosa will be the first to have the chance at joining Marichal in the Hall of Fame, as he is expected to retire either this off-season or next off-season.

Martinez will be the first pitcher in the Hall of Fame from the Dominican Republic. Martinez has a 209-93 record, with a 2.80 ERA in his 15-year career. He has struck out 3,030 batters in that time, making him one of only 14 pitchers to strike out 3,000 batters in a career.

Sosa already belongs to the 600 home runs club, while Ramirez, Ortiz, Rodriguez, Guerrero, Soriano and Pujols all have a chance to hit over 500 home runs before they retire. Sosa is currently fifth on the all-time home run list, with 609 career home runs. There have been only 22 players who have hit 500 home runs in a career, and only six of them are currently active.

But A-Rod has a chance to be the home run king when he retires. He is only 244 home runs short of Barry Bonds, who may not play another game in baseball again. Rodriguez has agreed to a ten-year deal to break the all-time record as a part of his contract with the New York Yankees, which even includes an incentive which would give him millions more to break the record with the team.

 


Baseball Reference On-line: minors.baseball-reference.com  

 

Top Sports blogs:

criticalflop.com


offwingopinion.com 

fanblogs.com 

yankeefan.blogspot.com

 

Volley Ball:

Norceca

The
North,
Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation
(NORCECA) is an incorporated, non-profit organization responsible
for all volleyball activities that take place in its zone.  NORCECA
is the continental confederation that represents its thirty-five
(35) member countries at the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB)
level.  The Confederation is responsible for, among other things,
the staging of Olympic and World Championship zone qualification
tournaments, as well as continental championships for both men and
women in Indoor and Beach Volleyball.  In 2003, NORCECA celebrated
its thirty-fifth (35th) anniversary.

 

mvn.com 

MVN is an independent sports media company relying on the volunteered time of people to “blog,”
or write on the internet, about their favorite sports team or any
derivation thereof. MVN also has a podcast network, which can be
thought of as blogging, except in voice form. MVN continues to
aggressively explore what a sports blog network can do on the internet,
and prides itself on being the first and largest sports blog network on
the internet. With such a distinction comes awesome responsibility, and
while other networks have sprung up, MVN continues to pave the way and
will continue to pave the way during this exciting time in history,
where “convergence journalism” is becoming the preferred media.

The Most Valuable Network, LLC company was started December 31st,
2003 by Evan Brunell and Frank Palmieri (since departed) and was
originally intended to be a simple collection of friends writing about
their favorite baseball teams. MVN took the next step when Dave Cohen,
a software programmer with IBM, decided to join the network in the
spring of 2004. Cohen created the MostValuableNetwork.com web site
(this web site has since been transformed into the company web site).
MVN unwittingly transformed from a collection of friends talking about
their favorite baseball teams to a web site leading the way in the
Internet revolution of media and providing “a nice example of
grassroots journalism,” as noted by David Pinto.

Since then, MVN has continually grown and pushed the envelope as the
original leader of a sports blog network. MVN became a Limited
Liability Company in the state of Massachusetts in December of 2004
with Evan Brunell as President and Dave Cohen as Vice-President. MVN
bought out All-Baseball.com, the first widely known conglomeration of baseball blogs, in March 2005. In July 2005, MVN bought out 360ThePitch.com, bringing into the fold a podcast network. 360ThePitch has since been turned into a live Internet radio site dubbed MVN Radio.

Another seminal event occurred in 2006 when Dave Cohen left the
company to pursue more vigorously a career at IBM. Undeterred, the
webmaster of 360ThePitch.com, Brandon Rosage, was brought on in a
full-time capacity and completely revamped the MVN layout to send MVN
into the next phase: becoming the best source (in addition to being the
original source) for independent sports blogging media. Moving to the
new domain of MVN.com also marked this seminal event. It is at this
time that Evan Brunell’s father, long an ardent fan and supporter of
the company Brunell helped start, was brought in as Executive Vice
President. Dan Benton, long an “organizational soldier” and invaluable
to MVN, was promoted to Director of Communications.

MVN has been linked to and covered in various media entities; from
USA Today to the Miami Herald. From the Edmonton Sun to the Worcester
Telegram and Gazette. From the Northeastern Voice to Time. From iTunes
to AOL Sports, and numerous other publications.

To view five featured stories of MVN, follow the links:

Blogs come into play, MVN thrives under Brunell: Worcester Telegram and Gazette, 8/23/07
Northeastern student hopes to build the next ESPN: Northeastern Voice, 8/12/07
Living a dream, Idea between friends blossoms into network: Tantasqua Town Common, 8/16/07
Sturbridge student takes on ESPN: Sturbridge Villager, 8/24/07
Blogs and baseball, BoSox fanatic finding success on the even playing field of the Internet, 1/15/05

For additional inquiries, feel free to e-mail the President of MVN, Evan Brunell, at evan@mvn.com.

For all website inquiries, please contact Brandon Rosage at brosage@mvn.com.

The organizational tree can be found here.

 

Critical Flop

About Critial Flop: 

Satire, commentary, and observations on a variety of topics ranging
from politics to sports to pop culture. The NY Times calls it "funny,"
"poignant," and "nothing short of revolutionary – the blog of our
time." World-renowned, Critical Flop is consistently the #1 result on
Google regardless of the search terms.

 


Presidente Beer

The DR sells a number of national and international beer brands but none are as popular as this local brew sold in sizes ranging from pequeña to grande and jumbo.

Buy on Ebay a Presidente Beer base ball cap

Check out our Drink section…

 

Also
making sports headlines

Marcos
Díaz set a new world record with his double-crossing of the Gibraltar Strait in
8 hours and 34 minutes (2005).  He
is the current Absolute Champion in the International Crossing of the Toroneos
Gulf competition, a title he has held since 2004.

 

Felix
“Super” Sánchez brought home the first-ever gold medal for the Dominican
Republic in the 400m hurdle event at the 2004 Summer Olympics Games.

 

Wikipedia Sports List for ‘Dominican Republic’ 

 

 

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