The social cost of baseball: addressing the effects of Major League Baseball recruitment in Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Published date: 22 December 2014
• Author: Ottenson, Emily B.
• Date: 22 December 2014

Baseball is the U.S.-American pastime. (1) Even endless debates over the significance of gradually declining ticket sales (2) and television ratings (3) have not altered the game's special place in the hearts of many North Americans. Its revered place in the social fabric of the United States is evident: from its historic ties to cultural ideals of "Americanism," (4) to the government's fervent attempts to protect it from the tarnish of scandal, (5) to its prominent and highly sentimentalized role in first the preservation then the dismantling of racial segregation. (6) But baseball also embodies a more controversial reputation of U.S.-American culture: globalization, the neocolonialism. (7) Overseas, the game is very much alive and thriving. For baseball, the concerns surrounding its expanding global influence are as troubling and significant as for any corporation calling the United States its home. (8)

In the late 1800s, the emerging pastime of the United States was introduced in Cuba, where it quickly took root before spreading south and west, making its way onto fields throughout Central America and the Caribbean. (9) In the United States, baseball's expansion was similarly rapid. The first professional league, the National Association of Professional Baseball Players, started in 1871 and was closely followed by the National League in 1876. (10) The American League began in 1901 and quickly became the National League's most successful competitor at the ticket window. In 1903, the National League and American League played the first World Series. (11) Major League Baseball never looked back. Professional baseball is firmly entrenched as a sporting institution in the United States. In 2000, the National and American Leagues officially disbanded, and were re-organized collectively as Major League Baseball ("MLB"), the corporate entity that serves as the collective nerve center of thirty teams operating in the United States and Canada. (12) The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball in New York City manages the MLB. (13)

Today, baseball's popularity in Latin America and the Caribbean is obvious. With each passing MLB season, more and more Latin American and Caribbean baseball players compete on Major League teams. (14) Coinciding with this shift in demographics is a new challenge, as Major League teams increasingly look beyond North America to recruit future superstars. MLB must balance international recruitment with rising concerns regarding the potential exploitation of foreign players and their governments. Unfortunately (but perhaps predictably), MLB has focused almost exclusively on the end result--the quality and marketability of talent on the Major League playing field--to the detriment of those players whose names will never be seen on an official box score, and to the places where they learned to play the game.

As Caribbean nations develop and become more politically and economically independent, MLB's international recruitment methods face increasing levels of scrutiny and criticism. (15) The teams comprising the world's premier baseball empire (16) have discovered a wealth of talent in Latin American and Caribbean nations, where baseball is often revered and feverishly popular. (17) In their collective bid to win games and bring fans through the gates, these MLB teams aggressively recruit Latin American and Caribbean players, hoping to find the superstars of tomorrow. Unfortunately this process provides little reward for the players' countries or themselves, short of the lucrative contracts that less than one percent of these players can hope to secure in the United States. (18) The goal of the MLB's international recruitment should extend beyond the mere financial and competitive advantages it provides by developing ways to recruit Latin American and Caribbean players without disadvantaging the players, as well as their countries, in the long run. (19)

Latin American and Caribbean countries should be financially compensated for the loss of native baseball players to MLB teams. Players recruited from Latin America and the Caribbean should be afforded the same rights and privileges as U.S., Puerto Rican, and Canadian players, and MLB should not be permitted to recruit them without some acceptable level of restraint or oversight. (20) This Note offers one possible solution to MLB's recruitment problems while taking into account both the interests of the recruited players, as well as the effect MLB's talent recruitment efforts have on Latin American and Caribbean countries.

The solution this Note proposes is a Coase Theorem (21)--based compensation system, in which MLB teams cooperate with Latin American and Caribbean countries to support the fair and responsible development of baseball players. Under this system, MLB teams will financially compensate these countries for the right to negotiate contracts with players and bring them into the Major League system. (22) This system will in effect allow MLB teams to purchase a country's interest in its player's talent, so that a team can sign and develop the player as a major league prospect. (23) Implementing and enforcing this compensation system will require the involvement of the governments of all participating countries or an international organization designed to oversee the process. It will encourage positive political relationships between the United States and Latin American and Caribbean countries by incentivizing governments to work with MLB teams in the development of young players. Because the supply and demand for talented baseball players is virtually unlimited, countries that are regularly financially compensated for the recruitment of their ballplayers will have a strong incentive to maintain positive relations with the United States. (24) Part I of this Note will discuss how MLB teams currently recruit talent in Latin America and the Caribbean. It will also introduce the recruitment systems in other countries for comparison purposes.

Part II will discuss current issues surrounding MLB teams' recruitment in Latin America and the Caribbean. This includes discussion of the possibility of an international draft, difficulties with expanding the jurisdiction of the Major League Baseball Players Association ("MLBPA") internationally, and the lack of a regulatory body to govern how MLB teams recruit in Latin America and the Caribbean. It will also discuss Japan's system for regulating MLB teams' recruitment of Japanese players for comparative purposes.

Part III will propose a Coase Theorem-based approach to international player recruitment. This approach suggests the implementation of a compensation system, wherein countries are paid by MLB teams for the right to recruit talent as a remedy for the social cost of baseball. It will also propose a "public-private" partnership to regulate this system. Under a public-private system, MLB teams will negotiate directly with both Latin American and Caribbean countries and the players themselves in a process that will allow MLB teams to purchase the right to recruit the players they hope to bring to the United States. Part IV will discuss some of the problems, benefits, and complications that may result from a player-rental system. For example: general resistance to a change in the recruitment model, concerns with incentivizing countries to embrace the new system, concerns with enforcement of the system, MLB's possible responses to the concept of player value, and the system's possible effect on international political relations.

I. AN INTRODUCTION TO PLAYER RECRUITMENT IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

International (25) recruitment of baseball players is not subject to any of the restrictions or requirements governing recruitment of players in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico (which all operate under the same system). (26) In the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, baseball players join MLB teams through a draft system. (27) After players are drafted, they join the MLBPA (28) and are protected as members of the union. (29) The MLBPA has jurisdiction only over those players who are subject to the draft. (30) MLB teams are barred from signing high school players in draft-eligible countries, and the effective minimum signing age for those players is eighteen years old. (31)

The system for recruiting players in Latin America and the Caribbean is very different. (32) In fact, there is no formal system. International players are not subject to the draft, and are not protected by the MLBPA. (33) Currently, the only rule in place to protect the interests of international amateur players is one that forbids teams from signing any player before he reaches age seventeen. (34) Nonetheless, this rule is not aggressively enforced and teams have developed various strategies to evade the age limitation. (35) MLB teams also have considerably fewer financial restrictions when recruiting abroad (36)

An element of Latin American and Caribbean recruitment is the prevalence of buscones. (37) Buscones are Latin American baseball scouts who recruit ballplayers. (38) Buscones either recruit players for MLB teams (39) or operate their own baseball academies, where they develop talent under little to no regulation. (40) These buscones often "lure boys as young as [thirteen] to their own training facilities--with the promise of developing their baseball talent--until they are old enough to be peddled to major league teams as free agents." (41) Some of the boys are completely separated from their families while enrolled in the academies. (42)

These academies operate like farm systems: young men spend their time training intensively for a chance to play in the United States, often forgoing education in exchange for appetizing signing bonuses. (43) Many young men are coerced into taking performance-enhancing drugs or lying about their age, and, in some cases, they live in...