Field of Broken Dreams- Brian Kochheiser

Reading the article, Field of Broken Dreams, was very interesting and eye-opening to me. I was not aware of what Latino athletes had to go through during the 1990s in an effort to make it big and achieve their dreams. While I was unaware of the situation because baseball has never been my favorite sport and I was only 7 years old when this article was written; I find myself not very surprised by this. At the end of the day, baseball, just like all other professional sports, is a business that is trying to make money. If they can pay less money on a prospect that is low risk and high reward then it only makes sense for them to do that. At the same time, some of the best players in the world today have Latino ties, just look at Miguel Cabrera, Yoenis Cesepdes, and Aroldis Chapman, just to name a few. These international baseball stars are compensated fairly and it is my understanding that the situation has gotten better over the course of the past 13 years. Looking at the game today, it boggles my mind when I see how much teams are willing to pay just to negotiate a contract with some of these players. Just look at Daiske Matsuzaka of the Boston Red Sox. The Red Sox paid over $51 million just to negotiate to him and then signed him to a contract of over $50 million. While not all foreign baseball players receive contracts like that, many of them get the opportunity to compete and prove that they are worthy of a high paying contract. Foreign baseball players seem to be compensated fairly in the MLB today.