Odermann, 63, is a mystery in baseball except to those he has touched. A former college baseball player, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1962 through 1965, helping to devise physical education programs for children. While on vacation in the Dominican Republic in the early 1980s, he saw poor children playing sandlot baseball and was moved to act. “Having lived in Colombia and seen the poverty there, I thought, Gee I’d really like to do something about this that can make an impact,” said Odermann, who went on to earn a master’s degree in Latin American studies from U.C.L.A. “I can tell you with absolute certainty that there were very few, if any, kids that were playing baseball and going to school. It just didn’t happen.” A virtually unknown stockbroker from San Jose, Calif., following his Peace Corps instincts, Odermann has spent 25 years as a silent baseball benefactor. He has arranged and financed scholarships for more than 100 young players from Caribbean countries to attend colleges in the United States. Eight players — from Venezuela, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico — are currently in the program after being identified and selected in tryouts by Odermann and his growing network of graduates.
Colombia RPCV Don Odermann creates Education Fund for Latin Players
Education Fund for Latin Players Quietly Changes Lives
By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: May 5, 2008
As major league baseball pulses to an ever stronger salsa beat, most fans see only the rising number of Latin Americans among the batting leaders and in All-Star Games. They do not see the other 95 percent — the anonymous Caribbean teenagers who sign professional contracts, spend years languishing in the minor leagues and return to their homelands without an education.
Don Odermann not only sees those young players, but he puts his money where his eyes are.
A virtually unknown stockbroker from San Jose, Calif., following his Peace Corps instincts, Odermann has spent 25 years as a silent baseball benefactor. He has arranged and financed scholarships for more than 100 young players from Caribbean countries to attend colleges in the United States. Eight players — from Venezuela, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico — are currently in the program after being identified and selected in tryouts by Odermann and his growing network of graduates.
Odermann’s self-run Latin Athletes Education Fund supplements partial athletic scholarships the players receive from their colleges, filling the financial gaps that otherwise would have kept them from accepting the scholarship offers. Ten graduates of his program have played in the major leagues, including the Mets’ Moises Alou. But a vast majority never do, learning that the education Odermann helped them obtain lasts longer than any playing career.
Three years ago, Jesus Barroso rode a bus seven hours from his home in Chiriqui, Panama, to a tryout in Panama City, and by virtue of his skills and intelligence was selected for the program. He is now a shortstop at the University of Tampa with eyes on a business career.
“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have my dream come true,” Barroso said of Odermann. “I know that I’m probably not going to be in the major leagues, so I’m thankful for the opportunity. I want to keep playing and keep studying.”
Barroso, a junior in Tampa’s well-regarded international business program, calls Odermann “our godfather here.” Odermann is similarly revered by older graduates. One has worked at NASA, another served in the Department of Agriculture and another is a supervisor in the F.B.I.
Three of his alumni hold prominent positions in the Mets’ front office: Rafael Pérez, the director of international player development; Ismael Cruz, the director of international operations; and Juan Henderson, who will run the Mets’ new academy in the Dominican Republic when it opens in June.
They all got their starts from a stranger.
“Everything I have experienced in the last, wow, 23 years, is really because of Don,” said Pérez, a Dominican who received a scholarship from Odermann to attend Chipola Junior College in Florida in 1985. He later received an accounting degree from South Alabama.
“My life is 100 percent different than it would have been if I would have just stayed in the Dominican,” he said. “I owe him everything that I have, and I literally mean it.”
Odermann, 63, is a mystery in baseball except to those he has touched. A former college baseball player, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1962 through 1965, helping to devise physical education programs for children. While on vacation in the Dominican Republic in the early 1980s, he saw poor children playing sandlot baseball and was moved to act.
“Having lived in Colombia and seen the poverty there, I thought, Gee I’d really like to do something about this that can make an impact,” said Odermann, who went on to earn a master’s degree in Latin American studies from U.C.L.A. “I can tell you with absolute certainty that there were very few, if any, kids that were playing baseball and going to school. It just didn’t happen.”
He added: “They are going to come to the United States, anyway — usually by signing a pro contract. But they very rarely make the big leagues, and you want them to either return to their home countries or stay in the United States with an education under their belt. Otherwise, they just go back and can be kind of without direction when the game is over.”
With his program still just an idea, Odermann put out feelers for teenage players in the Dominican Republic who wanted to go to college in the United States. After a tryout, he selected three: Alou, Pérez and Rafael Bournigal. (At the time, Alou was primarily a basketball player and estranged from his famous father, Felipe.) Odermann paid for them to attend junior colleges. Alou became a major league All-Star, and Bournigal had a short major league career. The program took off from there.
The few baseball executives who even know about Odermann’s program consider it one of the sport’s most purely altruistic ventures. Spending about $15,000 a year of his own money, Odermann receives no funds from Major League Baseball; one other individual donates about $20,000 a year and wishes to remain anonymous, Odermann said.
“It’s only over a period of time, and demonstrated by one’s actions, that you can begin to understand a person’s motives,” said Sandy Alderson, the chief executive of the San Diego Padres, who has known Odermann since the early 1980s. “Don has never been one to take advantage of the athlete side of the equation. It’s all been about promoting education.”
Mets General Manager Omar Minaya said: “For you to be part of Don’s program, you have to be well-rounded — and you look at the history, most of these guys go on to be, even if they’re not in baseball, they go on to be successful business people. He’s been a real help and a great resource for a pool of guys.”
Indeed, Minaya said that he hired Pérez, Cruz and Henderson while rebuilding the Mets’ Latin American scouting system, in part because of their Odermann-program pedigree. That operation has already produced important fruit: It developed Fernando Martínez, now the team’s best prospect, and Deolis Guerra, a minor league pitcher that sealed this winter’s trade with the Minnesota Twins for Johan Santana.
Efforts to reach Henderson in the Dominican Republic were unsuccessful, but his brother Ramón, the bullpen coach for the Philadelphia Phillies, emphasized the importance of Juan’s attending Eckerd College in Florida, which the Henderson family could not have afforded without Odermann.
“Don really made the difference in Juan’s entire life,” Ramón Henderson said. “If not for Don getting him a scholarship, I don’t think Juan would be where he’s at, and have his future ahead of him.”
Other graduates of the Latin Athletes Education Fund currently working in baseball include Charlie Montoyo, a former major league infielder now in his second year as the manager of the Durham Bulls, the Tampa Bay Rays’ Class AAA affiliate; and Rolando Fernández, the Colorado Rockies’ director of international operations.
The Latin Athletes Education Fund now has so many successful graduates that Odermann is starting a formal mentorship program, linking alumni with current students to provide personal and professional counseling. Earlier this month, Odermann and Pérez spoke about that next stage over drinks at a restaurant in New York.
“My family took me as far as I could go in the Dominican Republic,” Pérez said. “Don took me as far as I could go in the world.”
He looked at Odermann earnestly and added, “I never told you that, did I?”
Odermann said with a smile, “No, you haven’t.”
They clinked glasses for a toast.
“To the next generation,” they said.
