SAN PEDRO DE MACORIS, Dominican Republic -- There is joy in the owners' box on this night at the little ballpark where the Estrellas Orientales play.
"A much better night than last night, would you say?" shouts Eduardo Antun to a visitor over the insistent salsa music on the public address system.
He is watching through smudged windows with his brother, Manuel, in a bare room with concrete walls, the lights turned off and two ceiling fans spinning. The home team is up nine runs in the sixth inning and the stands are filled with people and noise.
The night before, Estrellas had lost in extra innings in Santo Domingo, the bullpen blowing a three-run lead. One night later: a big win. "That's the joy of baseball," Eduardo says in perfect English.
There have been more happy than sad nights for the Antuns this winter. Estrellas is the surprise of the Dominican winter league, sitting solidly in first place despite having fewer major-leaguers than the other teams.
"It has been exciting," says Eduardo, a 34-year-old, American-educated son of Dominican privilege.
The brothers are the third generation of their family to operate the team, which has an 80-year history. Their grandmother bought it in 1954 with some of the family's textiles fortune, and their father, aunt and uncle Rafael ran it until 1984, when they handed it over to the brothers.
Today the family is a politically connected heavyweight, among the founders of the party now in power, members of the small upper class in a country of enormous poverty and no middle class. But they are still widely known for their baseball team.
"Call it a very expensive hobby," says Eduardo, who attended New York Military Academy and Norwich University in Vermont, and today is vice president of the country's gold mine.
No amount of gold would be better than a winter ball championship, though. Estrellas is named for the eastern star that led the three wise men to Jesus' manger, but there has been no divine intervention here: Estrellas hasn't won a title since 1968. "To win this year would be unbelievable," Eduardo says.
Owning a team is a decidedly different matter here. The team's stadium was built by former dictator Gen. Rafael Trujillo in 1954, and there won't be a new one anytime soon. There is no general manager. The team's office is one small room behind the owners' box; it is locked during games while an old woman
counts the cash.
The brothers run the team, building the roster and negotiating salaries with the Dominicans and American minor-leaguers who play. But too many nights have ended with los fanaticos turning and beating on the smudged windows of the owners' box, telling them what they did wrong.
Sometimes it gets to them. As the bullpen blew the lead the night before in Santo Domingo, Manuel kept mumbling disgustedly. "He kept saying we need a stopper," Eduardo says, "He is like the fanaticos; he gets upset."
Maybe things are different this year. The team seems to have a special magic, and now here is Julio Franco, the 1991 American League batting champion, in the owners' box on this upbeat night, talking about playing for Estrellas beginning the next week.
"This would be a wonderful thing," says Eduardo as he looks at Manuel and the bald, muscular Franco deep in conversation, presumably about salary, "but I will believe he is playing for us when I see him on that field playing for us."
Many Dominican superstars, such as Franco, George Bell and Alfredo Griffin, don't play winter ball, fearful of getting injured and losing the big money they're making in the majors. But here is Franco, looking as earnest as a Boy Scout as he pledges perfect attendance.
"He did this one time before to us," Eduardo says. "In 1987 he said he was coming to play and never did. He did it in Cleveland one time, too, isn't that right? He is kind of famous for this. I certainly hope he plays, but I will wait and see."
A life of baseball
The old man's hair is white now, his knee hurts and he was sick for a while, but now he's better. Of course he is better: It is baseball season. "My uncle's whole life has been baseball," says Eduardo, nodding to his uncle Rafael, who was the principal operator of Estrellas Orientales for 30 years.
Rafael sits in the stands now with his retired friends in glasses and Cuban shirts, but when he hears a reporter from Baltimore is with his nephews in the owners' box, he makes his way to the box to offer his sporting fellowship.
"I have known Roland Hemond for as long as I have been in baseball," he says in broken English. "He was here on his honeymoon in 1954. His wife put the first shovel in the ground when they built this ballpark. I have the picture somewhere at home."
The story illustrates how long Rafael has been in baseball. The stadium is now a relic with a rocky field, best suited for a wrecking ball. Rafael doesn't see it, though. He sees only the game in front of him, as he has for four decades.
"That game last night, with the 11 walks," he says, shaking his head as he turns to his nephew. "Eddie, I would have fired someone today. They take out the starting pitcher after only three hits. There was no reason for that."
For years Rafael put the roster together, signing such players as Rico Carty and Cesar Cedeno. Roger Maris played for him in 1958. He happily names the members of his 1968 championship team: Mike Cuellar, Larry Dierker, Carty, Chico Ruiz.
"I signed Cedeno when he was still a child," he says. "I signed Carty, too. He played here many years. He made much trouble for me. Once he signed contracts with three teams, one of which was owned by the brother of Trujillo. But I'd signed him first."
His favorite American player? No doubt about it. "Ralph Garr played here three years in the '70s, and he called me 'Papa.' One year he had 105 hits in 59 games. That was .457, a record that's never been broken. The league was better then. The [Dominican] stars played."
He pauses, watching the game below, his hands resting on top of his cane. "But you know what? I don't blame George Bell for not playing. If he makes $2 million in the States, that's 25 million pesos here. The exchange rate was one to one for years, but now it's 12 to one. Two million dollars is a lifetime. I wouldn't play, either."
On the field, Estrellas is rolling again, the score growing to 11-1, 12-1, 13-1. Next to Rafael, his nephews talk on portable phones and converse with Franco about overnight delivery services. Contract talk. Rafael watches the game. When a batter fails to get down a sacrifice, he groans.
"One must always do such things," he says, "always."No joy in Santo Domingo
There is no joy at the dinner table on this Sunday night in Vesuvio II, an expensive Italian restaurant near the stadium in Santo Domingo.
The Antuns have just come from watching Estrellas lose another extra-inning game, the bullpen again blowing a lead after the starter had thrown well into the ninth.
"Lo siento," says someone to Manuel -- so sorry -- as he bends to sit at a corner table surrounded by anxious waiters.
Manuel manages a smile. "It is only a game," he says, although he would have a hard time convincing los fanaticos who walked with him after the game from his box seat to the lot across the street where his Mercedes was parked, analyzing every pitch.
The brothers are tired from the long day, but there is good news: Franco took batting practice, wearing his Texas Rangers uniform while his wife applied makeup in the seats. Even Eduardo, the skeptic, admits Franco seems intent on playing this time.
"I heard him on a pre-game show and he seems different, older, more serious," Eduardo says. "You know his first wife didn't like it in this country. His wife now, she seems to like it here, so maybe Franco has an easier time coming to play."
There are Dominican insiders who say perhaps Franco didn't want to play before because the Antuns are not big spenders, looking for bargains instead of stars. They point to this year's first baseman, Dion James, an American who is coming off elbow surgery and came cheaply because he doesn't have a job in the majors.
But one of their players, an American pitcher named John Pawlowski, demurs. "They take care of you," says Pawlowski, who has spent three winters with Estrellas. "You hear horror stories in winter ball about players not getting paid on time and getting bad checks, but I've had no trouble."
Of course, there is no talk of this at dinner. There is only the talk you hear in an owners' box. "I didn't agree with one thing [Estrellas manager] Nellie [Norman] did today with the pitchers," Eduardo says.
The starter, an enormous Atlanta Braves farmhand named Bievenido Rivera, pitched into the ninth, but gave up a leadoff single that turned into the tying run. In the 11th, with the winning run on second, Norman ordered an intentional walk and brought in a 19-year-old reliever to face major-leaguer Sammy Sosa, who drove in the winning run on the first pitch.
"He [Norman] never should have let Rivera start the ninth, and never should have brought in that young kid in such a difficult situation," Eduardo says. He broods for a moment, but then brightens. "Oh well. We have another game tomorrow. And we will win."
Every game is big
The brothers talk for hours a day, Eduardo says, about what to do, who is playing well, who might get shipped home, who might be available. The regular season is only 48 games, so every game is big. Americans who aren't producing sometimes are sent home. "The accent is totally on winning, not development," Eduardo says.
Not that a lot of money is at stake. The payroll is roughly a quarter-million dollars, and in a good year 125,000 fans come to ++ their little park -- not counting the hundreds who get in free because they know the ticket takers.
But don't be misled by the small numbers. The Antuns are passionate about their team. "They aren't in it for the money," says Baltimore Orioles assistant general manager Doug Melvin. "They do it because it's a family tradition, a love of the game."
That it is. "We go to the States once a year, usually in July, when we're beginning to put together the ballclub," Eduardo says. "We are always in contact with a lot of teams interested in sending us players."
They can tell you how to pitch to Chito Martinez -- "inside, away, away" -- whether Gregg Olson had a good year, what the Braves need. They talk often with Orioles first-base coach Greg Biagini, who was their manager for two years.
"We get Home Team Sports on the cable sometimes," Eduardo says.
After dinner, everyone heads home. "We would love to get David Segui for the pennant drive, but I don't know," Eduardo says. "And we do have a stopper in mind. It could make a big difference. Maybe one day we will see what we can do. Then maybe los fanaticos would be quiet."