Hitting The Cutoff Man

Last night I found myself at a minor league baseball game, one of my favorite things on Earth (I'm a sucker for wacky promotions and bizarre mascots, I guess). I've been to a lot of minor league games before, but this one -- a South Atlantic League match-up between the Hickory Crawdads and Charleston RiverDogs -- felt a little different to me.

The reason, I think, was that it was the first minor league game I've been to since I watched "Sugar."

Sugar is probably more a movie that involves baseball than a "baseball movie." But if you want to throw that distinction on it, I'd put it right there with Bull Durham as one of the best ever made.

If you haven't seen Sugar -- and if you are a fan of baseball and/or good movies, you really should -- I'll give you a brief, spoiler-free synopsis. The story follows Miguel "Sugar" Santos, a young Dominican pitcher who is signed to a professional contract, going from a baseball academy at home to spring workouts in Phoenix, to a minor league team in Bridgeport, Iowa, which might as well be Mars for all its similarities to his homeland.

The movie just gets everything right. They used actors who knew how to play baseball, making the on-field scenes more realistic than you will usually see on the big screen. The lead actor, Algenis Perez Soto, whom the filmmakers found during open casting calls held at Dominican ball fields, is tremendous and convincing in his role. And without giving anything away, the movie winds up going in a direction that is at once unexpected, heartbreaking and beautiful.

It also makes you think.

We all watch baseball and admire the Latin American stars, many from the Dominican. But we don't really give much thought to to the much larger group of their countrymen who are plucked from their homes at a young age and thrown into an exploitative system that has been compared by some to strip mining, only to fall short of the big leagues. What happens to them? They certainly have a tougher road to travel than their American counterparts.

All of this was on my mind yesterday as I watched a young Dominican relief pitcher for the RiverDogs give up four runs as the Crawdads came back to tie the game late and then eventually win it. Not to say this pitcher won't make it to The Show -- I have no idea if he will -- but of course the odds are against anyone playing in the low minors.

Movies may not be reality, but they can lead you to confront it, and "Sugar" is such a film.

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