When Juan Marichal came to this country to play baseball more than half a century ago, he remembers being a lonely, frightened teenager. "It was a very difficult time," he said Friday. "When you come [to] a country where you didn't know the language, you didn't know the culture . . . it's tough, especially at that age." At the time, only one Dominican player had reached the major leagues -- and he was discovered on a playground in New York City. But while Marichal was trying to find his way, he also was cracking open the door to what has become one of the greatest influxes of foreign-born talent in the history of U.S. sports. Since 1980, four seasons after Marichal's Hall of Fame career ended, nearly 8% of all major leaguers have come from the Dominican Republic, a country with a population smaller than Los Angeles County's. And nearly one in every five players in the majors has come from Latin America. READ FULL STORY
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