This article appeared in baseballdigest.com on April 1, 2009

By Jerry Milani

 

Competing against dozens of NCAA Division I and II schools in the baseball-mad state of Florida both on the field and on the recruiting trail can be a challenge.  With so many good players in the Southeast, Daytona Beach-based Bethune-Cookman University has taken a route largely uncharted by U.S. colleges ? Puerto Rico ? to find some of its most talented student-athletes.

 

For tenth-year B-CU Head Coach Mervyl Melendez, tapping the Puerto Rico ballfields for talent was a natural.  A native of Carolina, P.R., Melendez was a star third baseman and pitcher for the Wildcats in the mid-1990’s, before ascending to the skipper’s post in 1999.  Since then, he has utilized a network of contacts and old-fashioned scouting to establish a pipeline of players to the school, which has dominated the Division I Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) for most of Melendez’s decade at the helm.

“In Puerto Rico, there is a passion for the sport in so many kids,” says Melendez.  “The numbers playing the sport are still rising, and the talent level is high.  It makes sense for us to find the ones that can excel athletically and academically, and so far we have been able to do so.”

 

On this year’s 35-man squad, the Wildcats have 11 players born in Puerto Rico, plus one from Japan, another from Canada, and the rest from five U.S states.  This makes for a unique dynamic at one of the nation’s leading HCBU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), as players of varying backgrounds, races and cultures come together.  Melendez sees this as a major strength.

 

In a lot of ways, it’s like a Rookie League or A-ball pro team, where players from varying backgrounds converge.  “Because some of the guys are from Puerto Rico, some are born here ? and from different regions in the U.S., as well as Japan and Canada, the big benefit is that everyone learns from each other,” Melendez explains.  “They bring different ideas to the table, in baseball and in the real world.”

 

Getting many of the best college-ready players from Puerto Rico has been a boon for the B-CU program, which has earned eight NCAA Regional appearances in the last nine years, and annually faces an out-of-conference schedule featuring the likes of national powers Miami, Georgia Southern, Oklahoma and San Diego State along with games at Florida and Auburn coming up on back-to-back days next Tuesday and Wednesday.  Melendez has won three MEAC Coach-of-the-Year awards, including last year, and has had a hand in all nine of B-CU’s MEAC titles either as a player or coach.

 

The “pipeline” back to Puerto Rico now firmly in place, Melendez, who was featured in a USA Today  story on diversity in 2000, notes that his best recruiting tool is often the players who have graduated and have gone back home and talked to the up-and-coming prospects.

 

“I can say all I want about what it is like here,” he says, “but when the players talk about their own experiences, the guys know they’re getting the truth, and that’s been a big help.”

 

Two of Melendez’s top current players are good examples of how well this has worked.  Four-year starting center fielder Jos? Ortiz (.319 with 18 stolen bases in 2008) from Juncos and senior pitcher Hiram Burgos (9-1, 1.58) from Cayey are Puerto Rico natives who have emerged as leaders and have helped bring the whole team together.

“Jos? has been in that role since he got here,” says Melendez.  “And Hiram has improved every year to the point that he’s one of the best starters in the league.  They are great representatives of our program.”

 

One important factor that makes scouting and recruiting in Puerto Rico more fruitful than in other Latin American regions, where fervor for the game is at least as strong, is the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.  Puerto-Rican-born players are subject to the Draft, as are American prospects, whereas many talented kids as young as 16 or 17 in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama and other countries are scooped up by scouts wielding pro contracts.

 

“More kids would sign and that would change college recruiting [should the draft not apply to Puerto Rican players],” explains Melendez.  “We’d still be able to compete for kids who want to get their education as well as play a high level of baseball, but it would limit the pool of players, for sure.”

 

Melendez has added to the team’s international flavor with the addition of Yokusaka, Japan, native Mark Brooks and Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada-born Ali Simpson.  He notes that Brooks, raised by his single Japanese mother, is largely “Americanized,” but because of his upbringing does have the benefit of some Japanese customs in his approach to the game and to school.  Melendez discovered Simpson at a showcase in Jupiter, Florida, last year, in which Simpson’s hometown team was competing, and the southpaw has been a dependable member of the regular rotation thus far in his freshman season.

 

Melendez’s charges are currently 12-14 overall, playing the aforementioned challenging schedule, with most of the MEAC slate still to be played.

 

Jerry Milani is a public relations executive and writer living in New Jersey.