In Freakonomics, Dubner and Levitt discuss why testing for performance enhancing drugs adversely targets players from the Dominican Republic and come to the conclusion that the economics of the game provides these players more opportunity than they might ever get in several lifetimes.
Consider the economic environment from which Dominican players come. The DR is one of the most impoverished countries with one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world. Baseball, it seems, provides a way out from this destitute life and provides the opportunity to set one’s family up for generations. The risk to health is worth the reward, even if it’s just the reward of playing in the minor leagues.
Now consider this weeks’ news that Fausto Carmona, the Cleveland Indians pitcher, isn’t Fausto Carmona – he’s Roberto Heredia. Nor is he 28, but 32. When the Indians picked up his $7-million option, he was set to make more money in one year than likely generations of his family had ever made. BUT there was a hitch.
It seems that the family of the real Fausto Carmona – the man who’s identity Heredia had appropriated to get the documentation he needed to get into the United States – wanted more money from him for the continued use of the name. Just because they come from an impoverished part of the world, doesn’t mean they don’t understand the concept of licensing fees, it seems. Carmona’s mom blew the whistle on him on a Santo Domingo radio show and the rest, as they say, is history.
You could look at it and agree on the surface it was a stupid thing to do in the first place, or even that it was stupid for him not to entertain increasing the “licensing fee.” I wonder if he’s doing the math, now that he’s been released from custody, that he never actually has to work again. He’s made millions along the way, and his family now generational wealth. Americans might look at it and think he had the opportunity to make millions more – as evidenced by his $7-million option – but rather than looking at it as lost money, he may well be looking at what he has already earned. In short, if Dubner and Levitt are correct in their analysis, he’s probably looking at it as well worth the risk and that he had nothing to lose.
The real issue is how he could’ve gotten the documentation to stand up as long as it did, and why it would take a radio interview to bring his charade to an end – how could the US Government not known? Heredia is going to be fine whether or not he throws another major league pitch, and he may or may not care.