Back in the City, he attended Brandeis High School, which was predominately Hispanic and where mostclasses were taught in Spanish. That's why I was a little worried when I first came here. His English is excellent and, in fact, he is quite eloquent when talking about his youth. He was 10 years old when his family moved from his native Dominican Republic to New York City. He took one look around his new neighborhood and didn't see much that was pretty.
Drug buys on every corner.
As a little kid I saw that stuff every day. I knew I had to get out of there somehow. I wasn't going to hang out in the street. Ironically, back home in the Dominican Republic, he never liked baseball, as strange as that might seem in that baseball-crazy nation. His father and his older brother, Pavel, played, but the game didn't do anything for him.