(2008, Spanish and English) In the Dominican Republic where baseball has been played for over 100 years and from where more than 400 Latino players have made their way to the big leagues - including such standouts as the three Alou brothers, Pedro Martinez, and David Ortiz - every Major League Baseball team operates a school to develop teenage talent or has a representative scouting for promising prospects.

Surrounded by poverty, the schools, such as the Kansas City Knights Professional Baseball Academy in Boca Chica, as depicted in directors/writers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's honest, realistic movie for HBO Films, in addition to drilling the kids in baseball fundamentals, teach English classes for baseball vocabulary, provide meals and eating etiquette, and demand discipline and obedience. "Think about yourselves," a coach exhorts: "Forget everything else."

From San Pedro, 19-year-old Miguel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), who hurls a 95-mph fastball, is the focus of the film; he returns home on weekends where he'd been taught carpentry by his since deceased father. After learning to throw a knuckle curve, he signs a bonus contract (agents often take 30-40% for themselves) and receives an invitation with three other teammates to fly to Phoenix ("We've arrived") for tryouts, where he's one of 75 pitchers competing for 50 roster spots.

Sugar - whose name may refer to his appeal with the ladies or to his pitching mechanics or to his fondness for desserts - is befriended by Jorge Ramirez (Rayniel Rufino), a fellow Dominican with more experience and English fluency. Lacking language skills, imitating the only breakfast order he's heard Jorge request, Sugar repeatedly asks for French toast until a waitress educates him with a plate of different styles of cooked eggs.

On the mound, feeling confident of his chances, Sugar pitches to a veteran hitter, Gus Leonard, who knocks the ball out of the park. "Welcome to America, son!" crows a white coach. Nevertheless, the single-A minor-league club, The Swing, in Bridgetown, Iowa, recognizes potential in Sugar, where he takes up residence in the home of Earl and Helen Higgins, dedicated baseball fans, who have three simple rules for their guest, to keep him healthy and focused on the game: no girls in the bedroom, no alcohol, and quiet after 10pm.

On Sundays he attends church services with the Higginses; their son is in Iraq and daughter Anne (for whom he develops a sweet tooth and to whom he gives his first game ball) invites Sugar to her youth fellowship meetings. Sugar calls his mother, sister, and girlfriend back home and sends them money.

His pitching initially impresses the hometown fans and his manager, Stu Sutton. Another dark-skinned player, Brad Johnson, who studied history and baseball at Stanford, asks Sugar what he knows about the legends of baseball, such as Roberto Clemente and Babe Ruth - nothing and a candy bar.

After injuring his foot and Jorge's being cut loose from the team, Sugar struggles to recover his earlier form and performance. Lonely and homesick, an alien in a foreign culture (encountering occasional racism) without anyone to understand his frustrations, Sugar loses control on and off the field, making bad decisions. Preferring to be the author of his own destiny, he boards a bus for New York City, home of Yankee Stadium, where Jorge has gone ("bonus won't last forever") to stay with a cousin. There they play ball for the Bandits.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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