For Baseball’s October Party Crashers, the Key to Getting to the Postseason Was Going Global
Posted: October 10, 2012 Filed under: Sports Illustrated Cover, Uncategorized, Weekly Press Release | Tags: AL East, baltimore, baltmore orioles, Baseball, Cincinnati Reds, Dan Duquette, global, Matt Wieters, MLB, oakland a's, Orioles, postseason, SI cover, sports illustrated, Sports Illustrated Cover, world series, worldly series Comments Off
Worldly Series
For baseball’s small-market October party crashers, the key to getting to the postseason was going global in the search of out-of-this-world talent. When Dan Duquette took over as general manager of the Orioles last November, he inherited a losing team pinned to the cellar floor of the American League East. As he searched for the fastest way to turn Baltimore into a winner, Duquette identified the international market as the quickest route to relevance.
In the last 10 months the club has signed players from Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and Venezuela. There are big gambles and there are small gambles when it comes to international signings. For the Orioles, Reds and A’s the gambles have paid off and helped propel them into the postseason (page xx).
Orioles catcher Matt Wieters, who by now is accustomed to the struggle of making himself understood in multilingual mound conversations said, “There are more languages in our clubhouse than in the freakin’ United Nations.”
