Soaring home

I'd heard about the passion for baseball and the wealth of talent that makes the Dominican Republic the world's top producer, per capita, of professional players. On a visit to that Caribbean nation in February to document this phenomenon with Monitor writer Justin Brown, we found that the dream of making it to the big leagues was very much alive on the hardscrabble fields. One day I found a group of boys playing and decided to hang out with them for a while. Not having enough players, they organized a modified game using two cardboard bases and a home plate. They hit, fielded, and ran with abandon. One boy seemed to fly across home plate. When I look at this picture, it reminds me of the innocence and joy – the pure emotion – with which we play as children. Someday this boy may be a multimillionaire pro in the United States thinking of going out on strike. If that time comes, I hope that a bit of the joy of the game I saw in him remains – and that he rediscovers it in time to make the right decision.

A twice-monthly exploration of photography by Monitor photographers.