Energy Injections in Young Dominican Baseball Players on Rise

The Dominican Republic is a an area well known to major league baseball scouts in the US. Boys as young as 14 begin to make preparations for scouts through hours of vigorous running, practice, and injections.

These pain killer and vitamin-based injections are said to be given to the boys sometimes multiple times a week. The New York Times found that these young boys are getting these injections from handlers, which hold the title of coach and scout. In Spanish, these handlers are called buscones.

According to interviewed handlers, their goal is to strengthen players for tryouts that could yield signing bonuses of $10,000 to $3 million, (of which handlers receive 10 percent to 50 percent).

From Dominicans Try Shots to Boost Rising Players, The New York Times

Dominican-born players make up about 17 percent of major league and minor league rosters in the United States and Latin America, but about 38 percent of the players who tested positive for steroids and other banned substances since 2005.

The buscone system has developed as this island has become a rich producer of major league talent over the past two decades. It has produced myriad problems for Major League Baseball. Some Dominican stars, like David Ortiz and Sammy Sosa, have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

The rise on injections has raised a great deal of concern on all fronts.