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Synopsis
Far from the neatly manicured Major League stadiums, the future of professional
baseball is being written in the small towns in the Dominican Republic. From the time
they can walk, kids practice with rolled up sock balls and broomsticks, waiting for the
day they are old enough to sign. That day comes at age 16 when players are given the
chance to try out for professional teams. The best will sign, changing their lives forever
as they try to advance through the system.
Pelotero is a feature length documentary that intimately follows five teenage players
on and off the field as they compete for the attention of MLB teams in the run up to
July 2nd, the day they become eligible to sign. While their stories illuminate the dark
side of Dominican baseball- age falsification, steroid usage, and corruption- at the heart
is a tale of young players battling incredible odds to play the game they love.
Characters
Moreno Tejeda has been training peloteros in San Pe-
dro de Macoris for the past 18 years. He has prayed
his whole career for a player like Miguel Angel Sano.
Miguel Angel, at only 16—one of the top unsigned
prospects in the country—hits, throws, and fields, with
effortless raw talent. All 30 MLB teams have expressed
interest in Miguel Angel. Nonetheless, before July 2nd
Miguel Angel must confront several obstacles, including
an MLB investigation, as several scouts and executives
have begun to question his age.
Directors’ Statement
As fans, we noticed the game becoming younger and more diverse. At the forefront of that
movement were young Dominican players, who as a group constitute the largest international
contingent in both the Majors and Minors. While we were familiar with the storied image of
Dominican children playing baseball in the streets, the process of fine-tuning those kids into
the all stars we see in the big leagues was shrouded in mystery.
In fact, the only news we had heard about Dominican Baseball was negative. Allegations of
age falsification, steroid use, and academy corruption were splattered across the news media.
Yet despite the bad press, every year another crop of Dominican twenty-somethings would
get called up from the Minors, each with seemingly more potential than the last. How could a
system supposedly so inherently broken consistently turn out such successful players?
While the scandals focus on unscrupulous trainers and corrupt officials, they ignore what is at
the heart of this story: an entire generation with the same dream. To play professional baseball.
We set out to tell the stories of five teenage players who could represent the whole spectrum.
Their stories vary, as circumstances dictate their hopeful path to the major leagues. Together,
they tell of a nation’s dream and the combination of determination, persistence, and downright
luck it takes to actually make it.
The Filmmakers
From left: Casey Beck, Jonathan Paley, Trevor Martin, Ross Finkel
Guagua Productions LLC was formed in the fall of 2008 by Ross Finkel and Jon Paley follow-
ing their trip to the Dominican Republic to research Pelotero. Fresh out of film school, they
were eager hit the ground running with their first feature length movie. They quickly brought
on Casey Beck, recently returned from work on her feature length documentary Los Famosos
about young cartoneros in Buenos Aires. Rounding out the team is Trevor Martin, who has
worked on several Spanish language documentaries about the armed conflict in Colombia.