If you would be so kind and indulge me – Turn on the TV today, find a Major League baseball game to enjoy, and in the process check out the players on the field and in the dugouts. On the field, in the bullpen, in the dugout you will find players, coaches, and staff from a wide range of countries. You have representatives from massive countries like the United States, Japan, Mexico, and Canada. And a prolific list of representatives from much smaller countries like the Dominican Republic. Well, did it make you wonder how a tiny country like the Dominican Republic, with a population that hovers around 11 million people, can produce so much Major League talent? The answers and so much more can be found in a baseball book I just finished called “The Eastern Stars.”

“The Eastern Stars, How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris,” by Mark Kulansky is baseball history book that chronicles just how this talent in the Dominican Republic was cultivated. The short answer is over decades, working in the sugar trades, cutting sugar cane, surviving long days in the Caribbean sun on the fishing boats, and working odd jobs to put food on the table and a roof over their family’s heads. Once baseball was introduced into the Dominican Republic, it had to fend off competition from cricket and boxing to become the sport of choice for youngsters to participate in. Socks rolled up to mirror baseballs, milk cartons for gloves, sticks and sugar cane stalks for bats, open fields were the norm. Not the kind of equipment you would see on your kid’s travel team these days, huh? But this raw talent development inspired so many youths in the Dominican Republic to not only play baseball, but excel at it.

“The Eastern Stars” breaks down the historic timeline of the Dominican town of San Pedro de Marcoris and its place in baseball history. Who ran the town, who played baseball, who made it out to America (or Japan) to play in the Major Leagues, and who has come back to the Dominican Republic to work with the next generation? The story of the sugar industry and the sugar mill baseball leagues is just so fascinating. The scouts, the baseball academies set up by MLB teams (and Japan by the way), the players and families who benefited – it is all chronicled in this book. I was shocked to read how many great players were from this tiny town and their impact on the great game of baseball. It really is a special place on earth for baseball talent.

Check out Mark Kurlansky’s “The Eastern Stars” and read all about players like Rico Carty, George Bell, Robinson Cano, and Juan Samuel. Learn how they grew up, what resources they had to develop their talent, and how they fared in the Major Leagues. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about this country in Latin America which seems to produce incredible talent on the mound, in the batter’s box, and in the field year after year. Although the book is about 15 years old from its original publishing, it still provides a fantastic historic perspective on how baseball changed a small town in the Dominican Republic and put San Pedro de Marcoris on the international map of baseball.