A Baseball Academy in a Talent-Poor Part of Mexico Matt Krupnick - The New York Times
go to original May 25, 2013

None of the academy's approximately 45 students come from Oaxaca. (Jennifer Kho/New York Times)

SAN BARTOLO COYOTEPEC, Mexico — In this tiny town just south of Oaxaca’s state capital, some of Mexico’s most talented young baseball players are taking their first real steps toward the big leagues.

A baseball academy that opened in 2009 has seven fields, a weight room, trainers, dormitories and even custom local art.

Pitchers practice their motions step by step as a coach yells: “Uno! Dos! Tres! Cuatro!” Typical baseball sounds — bats hitting balls, balls hitting leather — compete with the drone of cicadas.

The billionaire Alfredo Harp Helú opened this baseball academy in 2009, and the sparkling school has seven baseball fields, a weight room, trainers, dormitories, even custom-made artwork by local potters. Harp’s plan, in part, was to prepare Oaxacan boys for major league careers.

But this school in the heart of Oaxaca, bordered by cornfields and wilderness, is missing one glaring element: Oaxacans. Of the 45 or so students, none are from this mountainous, impoverished state.

Read the rest at The New York Times

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