A Problem

If anyone has a problem with Miguel Tejada then they have a problem with me, too.

That’s because I read Away Games by Marcos Breton and Jose Luis Villegas. It’s the story of Tejada’s journey from the Dominican Republic to the minors and on to big leagues.

The book is a glimpse at what Major League Baseball really does to kids in the Dominican. It shows 50 players at every academy fighting for a spot so that they can keep eating three-meals-a-day for the first time in their lives.

It details their struggle for only a handful of opportunities to come to the United States and start at the bottom of the minor leagues.

Baseball is the only chance most of these kids have at a decent life, and thousands of them are discarded by the system like yesterday’s trash.

Tejada didn’t overcome all that to be pushed around by privileged men who have never had to overcome anything.

So if Henry Waxman and Tom Davis have a problem with Miguel Tejada then they have a problem with me, too.