The Dominican Republic began training on Tuesday to form the best possible baseball team to seek a quota at the Tokyo Olympics.
“We have an interesting group, many Dominicans who do not have a contract in the United States have come to the call to be part of the team,” said the general manager of the Dominican team, José Gómez.
“We have a big group because we know that some of them will be able to get work, others may have some setbacks and learning from mistakes of the past, as we did not convene a small group but more than 40 players who will be coming in two groups and to that we plan to add some organized baseball players to have the best possible team to represent the country, ”he added.
Emilio Bonifacio and Juan Francisco, two important players in the Dominican winter ball, were seen yesterday in practice, among the most renowned.
“There is also Jorge Bonifacio, Emilio’s brother, Jefry Pérez, Jimmy Pardes, Gustavo Núñez, Diego Goris, Juan Francisco, Carlos Franco. In pitching we have people like Edward Paredes, Darío Álvarez, Lisalverto Bonilla, Jairo Asencio, William Jerez, Luis Santos, we have a lot of important arms in winter baseball, “he said.
The team travels on April 22 and will play three home games in Florida before kicking off hostilities on April 31 in the first game against Puerto Rico.
“We have to be in the first place among the top eight teams in America. Only Mexico ranked so far. We share a group with Puerto Rico, the United States and Nicaragua. On the other side are Venezuela, Colombia, Canada and Cuba, all strong teams.” .
The team leader is Fernando Tatis, who was not present on the first day of training as he is in the United States with his son, who is recovering from a shoulder injury that has kept him out of action since from Monday 5.
“We hope to have Fernando next week, meanwhile Wilton Veras is in charge of the practices. We also have Manny García as pitching coach and Anderson Hernández. Later other coaches will be integrated,” added Gómez.
In addition to Gómez, in baseball operations, the Dominican team has executives from the winter teams such as Daniel Rufenacht (Licey), Oliver Arias, (Stars), Luis Manuel Sánchez (Giants) and Héctor Borg (Bulls).
“We have an interesting group, many Dominicans who have no contract in the United States”
