Tapping In to an Economy of Sale

Just as with agents in the United States, it would seem that some buscones would be more trustworthy than others. But Rijo is quick to say, "I don't trust any of them."

Still, less than an hour after speaking of his distaste, Rijo sat at a table and dined on rice and beans with Vizcaino. The agent said he received 20 percent of Gonzalez's signing bonus -- or $280,000 -- a typical percentage for the services he provided, letting Gonzalez stay in his house and offering him better nutrition and training over a two- to three-year period.

Vizcaino said there are anywhere between 100 to 150 buscones who operate training camps in the Dominican Republic, each trying to seize the most talented players and negotiate the most lucrative contracts. The fight for players is fierce and, sometimes, shady. Buscones have been known to juice players on steroids in the weeks before a tryout, adding miles per hour to their fastballs or distance to their home runs.

"And then after you sign them, a guy who was throwing 93 [mph] at a workout is down to 83," Rijo said, "and you're like, 'What the hell?' "

Vizcaino and other buscones play down the underbelly of their profession, but they admit there are rivalries among them. Given the amount of money at stake -- scores of kids are signed each year to lesser bonuses, beginning in the tens of thousands of dollars -- and a Dominican economy in which citizens earn an average of roughly $2,400 annually, the pursuit of players is a booming business. "There's a lot of competition," Vizcaino said, "but there's not a lot of fighting."

MLB is aware of the pitfalls involved in the system. The league, though, says it is helpless to do anything directly about it.

"We do have a concern," MLB's Peralta said. "But I have to be honest with you, and I want to state for the record: Buscones, or independent scouts, are a very important part of the industry. They help fill a gap, because there's not a lot of organized baseball in the Dominican Republic. They provide a service.

"But the sad situation becomes when, like in any other big group of people, there are some guys -- and I wouldn't say the majority of them, because there are a lot of hardworking people -- but you will find some bad apples that have abused the players. We have no jurisdiction over them, but still, those incidents are the most publicized."

Peralta said his office is working with the Dominican government to help establish regulations that MLB couldn't enforce itself, including setting standard percentages buscones can receive from a signing bonus -- 10 percent if they worked with a kid for a year or less, 15 percent if it's a year or more. Though President Leonel Fernandez signed the legislation, Peralta said it had some "points of conflict" with the Dominican Olympic committee and other politicians, and it is not yet law.

"Basically," Peralta said, "it's out of our hands."

If the system bothers Gonzalez and his family, they don't show it. Sitting in plastic chairs on the dirt under a tree outside their tin home, set aside a more proper house belonging to Gonzalez's grandmother, they pass around a sugar cane stalk whittled with a dull machete, chewing on the sweet pulp and discussing their lives. Inside a "living room" that can't be more than eight feet long and six feet wide, Gonzalez fiddles with his Soundmaster III three-disc changer stereo, another new addition, and talks about training roosters "to fight, and when they lose, to eat," he said.

Gonzalez's father, Daniel, has the same soft features as his son, the same easy manner. He understands that $1.4 million will alter his family's life -- providing for the rebuilding of the new home, the Escalade, the hope. Yet he argues that his son, now with expectations and money he didn't have just six months ago, hasn't changed.

"Mentally," Daniel Gonzalez said through an interpreter, "it's like the same."

That, Rijo said, is why he believes Esmailyn Gonzalez will make it. During a morning workout, Gonzalez showed a slick glove and a bat that produced far more line drives than popups. Brown, Washington's scouting director who saw Gonzalez before the Nationals beat out the Texas Rangers to sign him in July, said he was immediately drawn to Gonzalez's disciplined approach at the plate, his ability as a switch hitter, his defensive skills and his long-term potential to hit for power.

Rijo, though, is most impressed with another tool: his head. After he signed for his riches, Gonzalez asked Rijo how to spend his money, and the former pitcher said he had to buy a house before a car, "because no matter how many cars you have, if you don't have a good garage, you'll regret it." So the building on the Gonzalezes' new place began before the Escalade was purchased.

"That's why I'm so high on him: his attitude," Rijo said. "It's not the tools. It's how he handles himself. He's not a typical Dominican kid."

The typical Dominican kid won't travel to Florida for spring training or spend his summer in the minor leagues, as Gonzalez is scheduled to do. The typical Dominican kid, Rijo said, doesn't talk as much about his family.

Outside his new, unfinished house, Gonzalez was offered a chance to join Rijo at his seaside home for lunch of fish stew and plantains. Gonzalez, though, politely declined, preferring to return to his family's shack. With that, he hopped in his Escalade, turned up the stereo and headed off, certain a better life -- and the major leagues in Washington -- lay somewhere beyond the rocky road beneath his tires.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.