Islander In The Sun

Sporting News, The, Oct 9, 2000 by Sean Deveney

Curacaoans feel an inherent connection to Jones, like they have a stake in everything he and the Braves do. Irene Moreno, for example, is a 78-year-old grandmother who knew more about cricket than baseball until Jones became a Braves star. Now she watches every game--Curacao cable offers TBS and Fox Sports. Like any good baseball fan, she is smarter than the manager. "I want a direct line to Bobby Cox in the dugout," she says. "He makes too many mistakes. I will tell him what to do."

And there's Girion Pina, who is 6 years old and speaks no English, other than, "yes." But say the word "baseball" and Girion puts his hands together and takes a slow-motion home run swing, adding, "Baseball, yes. Andruw Jones."

The ripples of Jones' success are thus spread over Curacao. The youth league in Brievengat, the Willemstad neighborhood where Jones grew up, has gone from 70 kids in 1996 to 150 this year. When Jones turned pro in 1993, there was only one scout on the island, the Braves' Giovanni Viceisza, who signed Jones for $46,000. Now, 20 teams have a Curacao scouting representative. As Ernst Meyer, Jones' former coach in Brievengat and a scout for the Orioles, says, "Every youth coach is a scout now." Only one Curacaoan, former Yankee Hensely Meulens, played big league baseball before Jones, but there are currently 15 in major league systems, including Jones, Orioles third baseman Ivanon Coffie and former Braves first baseman Randall Simon, now with the Yankees. One pitcher, Diegomar Markwell, got a signing bonus of $750,000 from the Blue Jays.

"Everybody gets signed now," Meyer says. "No one wants to miss the next Jones."

Who knows how many Joneses already have been missed? Cedric Kirindongo remembers becoming hooked on baseball on October 4, 1955. He was 9 years old, listening on Armed Forces Radio as Johnny Podres of the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees, 2-0, in Game 7 of the World Series. Kirindongo decided then he wanted to be the first person from Curacao to play in the U.S. He was a third baseman with some power--probably not enough for a shot with a major league team, and with no American scouts on the island, there was no chance.

Kirindongo played with Henry Jones, Andruw's father, who was an excellent catcher and center fielder and a hitter who "knew no strike zone. He could hit anything." Kirindongo also played with Willie Pietersz, an outfielder who won the batting title at the 1970 Pan Am games, and with Raffy Josepha, a power hitter considered the best player in the island's history before Meulens, who played with the Yankees from 1989 to '93.

Few Curacaoans feel as strong a link to Jones as those who played before the arrival of U.S. scouts. Most baseball diamonds in Curacao have no lights, and none have grass--the island's location, in the doldrums of the Caribbean, forces it to rely on desalinized ocean water, which is very expensive. The conditions are spare, but baseball has been played on the island for decades. Only recently have American teams noticed.