Why there are no Haitian pro baseball players in U.S.

Why there are no Haitian pro baseball players in U.S.
4 commentsby Clay Thompson - May. 10, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

Today's question:

I was told there are not any baseball players in Major League Baseball from the country of Haiti. There must be more than 100 from the Dominican Republic. Those countries share the same relatively small island. If there really are no players from Haiti, why not?

To tell you the truth, I wasn't planning on answering this one, but I poked around a bit and the best answer I could come up with was kind of interesting, so I thought I would give it a whack.

Every now and then, I get a call from one of you wanting to know why I haven't answered your question, and the fact of the matter is, I just can't answer them all for one reason or another. So, don't take it personally.

Anyway, this is the idea I came across about Haiti not embracing baseball.

Over the years, the United States has thrown its military weight around for one reason or another, real or imagined, for right or for not, at many of our neighbors to the south.

These include Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, and all those countries embraced the game introduced by U.S. troops to one degree or another.

Most of these invasions were fairly brief, but we also intervened with military force in Haiti from 1915 to 1934, and folks there really hated us. Probably with good cause. Sixteen American troops were killed during that occupation, compared with about 2,600 Haitians killed by our forces.

So, the Haitians weren't particularly happy with us and weren't about to head out to the old ballpark to watch the Marines play baseball.

It's true that Haiti is a major producer of baseballs for Major League Baseball, but it prefers soccer to America's pastime.


Reach Thompson at clay.thompson@arizonarepublic.com.

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