In a country where the majority of residents live in shacks, struggle daily just to put food on the table and use "motorconchi’s" (the U.S. version of mopeds) to get around, baseball is as much a part of the landscape of Hispaniola as merengue, the Latin rhythm that beats to all hours of the day in its cities and barrios.

On any given day during any time of year in any town in the Dominican Republic, you will witness children of all ages swinging make-shift bats and throwing make-shift balls in pick-up games. Sticks from nearby trees may be used as bats, and bottle caps may be used as the baseball. The kids play in dirt alleyways where bases are created by using rags or putting together a group of small rocks.

How big is baseball in this country? Take one afternoon alone, the day after Christmas to be exact in the large, garbage-strewn parking lot outside Tetalo Vargas Stadium in San Pedro de Macoris, the Dominican Republic’s third largest city whose most famous resident is famous for saying, "Beisbol has been very, very good to me!"

In every corner of Tetalo’s parking lot, there is a game in progress. Kids, 10-16 years of age, donned in flip-flops and ratty t-shirts and shorts - but all wearing a baseball cap of a major league team. Only a few own gloves and the bat isn’t made by any well-known manufacturer. The ball - it’s a roughed-up tennis ball, if you want to call it that.

Yet this town alone has produced three of the game’s biggest stars: Slammin' Sammy Sosa, Alfonso Soriano and Luis Castillo.

Bottom line: the Dominican Republic produces players from every aspect of the game - and they come from all over the country. And they’re going to keep coming. That's because baseball is life here - and a way out to make a decent standard of living.