■ On getting the job of coaching in the DSL:
Basically I had talked to Scott Servais. We had talked about the opportunity to coach in ’06 – basically after I was done playing. He said that there was maybe a job opening up, but it was going to be a little different. It was going to be in the Dominican Republic. We would sit down and we talked for awhile about it. It basically came down to I wanted to get into coaching. That’s what both my parents did, but at the high school level.
We talked about the benefits of it and one of the things I wanted to learn was Spanish. I figured if you’re going to be around the game of professional baseball, you talk about finding ways to separate yourself from other coaches. The opportunity came up down here and I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ I want to learn Spanish anyway.
■ The difference between coaching young Latin players and young U.S. players:
I think the difference between the Latin kids, where you grow up in the states – I’m from Kansas City – the number one sport was football and basketball. That was our opportunity and I was a big Chiefs fan and stuff. Down here, the number one sport is baseball and it’s by far. It’s not even close. Instead of guys like LeBron James or Michael Vick or whoever in the states, those guys aren’t football players – they’re shortstops or they’re left-handed pitchers.
I think that’s the beautiful thing about it. You don’t have an AAU basketball coach all over a 6-foot-4 13-year-old getting him to play AAU ball. That 6-foot-4 kid may be a left-handed pitcher and that’s what they want to be. That is kind of the difference.
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