Does MLB discriminate against Haitians?

Nick Collias, who covers the Spanish language media for MLB Trade Rumors sent me a story the other day that I haven’t seen anyone pick up anywhere. You can read it in Spanish here. I couldn’t, so Nick was nice enough to translate it for me.

The gist: MLB has a policy of not allowing Haitian players to attend team academies in the Dominican Republic--and, hence, to not get anywhere near the major league prospect system. The reason is ostensibly that the players aren’t able to have their backgrounds or papers verified easily, what with Haiti being Haiti and all. But a couple of coaches quoted in the article think it’s unfair and discriminatory, because many Venezuelan and Cuban players in the same situation don’t get nearly the same level of scrutiny. Some translated text:

Andres “Chaca” Martinez, Sixto de la Cruz, and Juan Pena Reynoso, three coaches in the Juan Pablo Darte Olympic Center, said recently they were obliged to send away several promising Haitian prospects in excellent condition because no one wanted to evaluate them.

“Last week I had to send away four, due to that when I wanted to introduce them to several scouts, they refused to see them, and when asked for a reason they told me that unfortunately, they were not allowed to see Dominican-Haitian players,” revealed Martinez. De La Cruz said he had to dismiss two Haitian pitchers who threw 90 to 91 mph for the same reason.

“They are guys with good physiques, holding passports and Haitian birth certificates, but the scouts told me they don’t see them because the investigators from the MLB office here will not allow any Haitian players through,” said De La Cruz. He added, “It is unfair that the young men of that neighboring country are denied the opportunity given to Cubans and Venezuelans, who are signed without investigation.”

Reynoso considers the treatment of the Haitians discriminatory and unjust, saying they are human beings worthy of better treatment.

I don’t know nearly enough about identity documentation issues in Haiti vs. the Dominican Republic vs. Venezuela vs. Cuba to know if these coaches’ complaints are legitimate or not. If all things are equal, and if baseball is treating Haitian prospects -- such as they are -- differently, that’s a problem. If, however, there is something inherently less-trustworthy about Haitian documents than there is about, say, Cuban documents, such differences would be understandable.

I’ll offer this much though: between the lack of diplomatic ties with Cuba and the Haitain earthquake, one would suspect that checking back with the issuer of the documents would be equally impossible, so there’s not a lot of cause, I wouldn’t think, for distinguishing between Cuban and Haitian documents.

Either way, this is a story that may be worth looking into more deeply.