Bobby Valentine has always had more than a bit of Hollywood in him. The flashy, outspoken Red Sox manager can sometimes seem as though he’s been sent from central casting. Now Valentine has gone Hollywood for real. He has produced a film about baseball in the Dominican Republic, and that film, being released this week, is the subject of considerable controversy.
“Ballplayer: Pelotero,” which comes to the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline for a preview Wednesday and opens there on Friday, has not gone over well with Major League Baseball.
The league is displeased with the film’s allegations of corruption and coercion in the signing process for young prospects from the Dominican Republic. MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said in an e-mail that the league “had a conversation with the Red Sox about the inaccuracies and misrepresentations that were in the documentary,” but did not elaborate on what they were.
Valentine said the film simply reflects reality.
“It’s not anyone acting,” Valentine, who does not appear in the film, told the New York Post recently. “It’s just the way things are done. It might seem foreign to some people watching it here. I’m sure it’s been the way things are done for years to get the upper hand. It’s just the way you do things.”
Beyond that, however, Valentine is tightlipped about criticism of international scouting in the Dominican Republic. One reason might be that he now has a high-profile baseball job he did not have when he agreed to produce the film.
“Most people have no idea how hard these players work,” he told the Globe by phone before a recent Red Sox game. “They live in rooms with eight other guys; when they make it [to the majors] they totally appreciate it.”
The film is the first funded by Makuhari Media, a sports film production company Valentine formed in 2010 with Andrew J. Muscato. Muscato tracked Valentine’s 2007 season as manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines for the ESPN Films documentary “The Zen of Bobby V.”
“Ballplayer: Pelotero” tracks top prospects Miguel Sano and Jean Carlos Batista as they prepare for the July 2, 2009, signing date for 16-year-old international players.
Baseball is the economic and cultural lifeblood of the Dominican Republic; as the documentary notes, some 20 percent of professional baseball players hail from the island....
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Related: Valentine shows courage by supporting documentary about baseball recruiting
Yes, the Globe loves him even more.
Also see: Guatemala Begins Latin American Swing
I wonder how that election turned out.
