They're Not Good for Your Digestion

Last night Plot and Duck watched a really sad but excellent film called "Sugar," which is about a young pitcher from the Dominican Republic and how he has to manage his way through the totally alien world of the minor leagues in small American towns. Nobody speaks Spanish, everyone resents black people and the competition is cut-throat. The end is what's sad about the film -- not that anything horrible happens, just that you always believe, in a movie, that the good guy is going to get whatever he wants.

Also last night, the Plotzer's best young pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, pitched against the Padres, and the Braindead Caribbeans' best young pitcher, Tim Lincecum, pitched against the Diamondbacks. The Plotzer won and the Braindead lost, but the interesting thing is these guys are the real-life personification of what Miguel "Sugar" Santos had wanted in his life.

So many try, and for most Latinos this is their only shot at getting off their islands and away from a live of poverty. Very few can succeed. Often it's luck -- avoiding a devastating injury -- being at the right place at the right time. We forget that Kershaw and Lincecum are really young kids -- they're like three-year-old racehorses, in their primes, used for what they can deliver right now. They only get a scant few years, if they're lucky, and when they're done they're done. This is why Plotnik never resents a baseball or basketball player earning outrageous money for a few years -- if they're so good that people want to watch them throw or shoot that ball, they deserve to get paid whatever they can.

But most never even get off the island, or if they're lucky enough to get to Bridgeport, Iowa or Little Rock, Arkansas, they've got to be extra strong just to survive.

There was a great story in the film about a real-life Puerto Rican baseball player from the 1950s named Victor Pellot, who, when he got to the major leagues, used the name Vic Power. He had a distinguished career as a first baseman but before he got to the Cleveland Indians he was in the minor leagues in Little Rock.

This was the early 1950s and his English wasn't perfect yet. He went into a coffee shop for breakfast and a waitress whispered in his ear: "Sorry, we don't serve black people in here." Power whispered back: "That's OK. I don't eat black people."