By Kevin Kelly
The Cincinnati Enquirer

When people asked what the sixth grader wanted to be when he grew up, Felipe Lopez answered honestly and without hesitation.

"I told them I was going to make it to the big leagues," he said. "I really wanted to consider it as my career. People were like, 'Oh, he's crazy.' I was like, 'Shoot, I love it.' "

In Puerto Rico, where the Reds infielder from Bayamon was born more than seven years after Roberto Clemente died, the love affair often starts early.

And for a few, like the 38 Puerto Rican players on major-league rosters on opening day, the desire to become something great knows no limitations.

"If you come from a poor family like I did, you had to work hard because you wanted to get out of that life," said Lopez, whose family moved to Florida when he was 12 years old.

"You wanted to get a better life."

BREAKDOWN

Percentage of major league players born outside the continental United States: 27.8   Number of players from: • Dominican Republic: 79 • Puerto Rico: 38 • Venezuela: 37 • Mexico: 17 • Japan: 11 • Canada: 10 • Cuba: 10 • Panama: 7 • South Korea: 6 • Australia: 3 • Colombia: 3 • Aruba: 2 • Neth. Antilles: 2 • Nicaragua: 2 • England: 1 • Germany: 1 • Vietnam: 1   Teams with the most major leaguers born in foreign countries or U.S. territories: • Expos: 14 • Orioles: 12 • Rangers: 11 • Dodgers: 11 • Giants: 11

The Reds, who boast six Latino players on their active roster, travel to Puerto Rico this week. They will play a three-game series with the Montreal Expos starting Friday at Hiram Bithorn Stadium.

"It's big," said Reds first base coach Jose Cardenal, who was born in Mantanzas, Cuba. "It's a chance for the Latin players to play in front of everyone that's been following them their whole careers."

The numbers

The Expos are playing a 22-game "home" schedule in Puerto Rico for several reasons.

Major League Baseball, which runs the club, hopes to cut financial losses at Olympic Stadium in Montreal while it further exposes the game to Latin America and explores a potential market.

"We needed to find a place for the Expos this season," MLB spokesman Richard Levin said, "and it seemed to be of major interest to people down there."

Teams have scoured Latin America and the Caribbean for talent the past several decades.

Increased attention to scouting in the region has resulted in an increase the last six years of foreign-born players in the major leagues.

Of the 827 players on opening-day rosters this year, 230 were born in 16 different foreign countries or U.S. territories.

The majority of those came from the Dominican Republic (79), Puerto Rico (38), Venezuela (37) and Mexico (17).

Hall of Famers Clemente and Orlando Cepeda head a list of notable Puerto Rican players who have enjoyed major-league success.

Roberto Alomar, Ivan Rodriguez, Bernie Williams, Juan Gonzalez and Carlos Delgado are just a few of the current stars born in Puerto Rico.

"Where I grew up in Cuba, basketball was played a little bit," said former Reds manager and Hall of Fame player Tony Perez, who has a home in Puerto Rico. "But baseball is the main game for Latin Americans. That's what we do."

The origins

How baseball was introduced and by who remains a topic bathed in folklore and debate.

Some credit United States Marines for exhibiting the game in Cuba, Nicaragua and Mexico in the mid 1800s.

Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, a Yale professor and author of The Pride of Havana, credits a Cuban student for baseball's introduction into Latin America.

Nemesio Guillot, a student at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., returned to his native Havana in 1864, carrying with him a bat and ball.

The game developed and radiated from the country soon after.

"Baseball was a way to reject the old Spanish ways," Echevarria said. "Baseball became the antidote to something as barbaric as bullfighting.

"It was also subversive to be with something so modern. It was adopted as part of Cuba becoming an independent nation from Spain."

In turn, Cubans traveling to Puerto Rico in the early 1900s brought the game there.

"Baseball's origins in the area went beyond just simply appealing to a specific category of people," said Samuel O. Regalado, a history professor at California State University-Stanislaus and author of Viva Baseball!

"It was much more widespread across class lines, so its appeal was wide-ranging."

The Reds' place

Among the first teams to tap into the talent-rich pool of Latin America was the Reds.

At a time when major-league baseball was still an all-white game, Cincinnati manager Clark Griffith signed Cuban outfielder Armando Marsans and infielder Rafael Almeida in 1911.

They made their major-league debuts on July 4 that year, becoming the first Latin America-born players to participate in the major leagues.

"Those two players came in and started the first wave of Latin players," Regalado said.

Marsans played with Cincinnati from 1911 to 1914, and Almeida played for the Reds from 1911 to 1913.

Three years before their debuts, the Reds traveled to Cuba to play in a four-team tournament in Havana.

Cincinnati later had its Triple-A affiliate based in Cuba. The Havana Sugar Kings played in the International League from 1955 until July 1960. The club moved to Jersey City, N.J., because of the Cuban Revolution.

"The Reds had quite a connection," Echevarria said. "Quite a few Reds went through Havana on their way to their parent club."

The fans

The game of baseball itself is played no differently in Latin America than in the United States. The noticeable difference is the fans.

"For a lot of Latin Americans it's not just simply a game to be enjoyed, but really the symbol of their character," Regalado said.

"They see this as a great achievement. ... If you can compete and succeed on the baseball diamond in one of the bastions of Americanism, to do so on an equal basis, that is a great, great stimulus for pride and incentive for achievement."

Ticket sales for Expos games in Puerto Rico have been brisk. Fans purchased more than a quarter of tickets online before box offices opened.

So Lopez knows what to expect.

"Every strike, from the first inning to the last, they'll be screaming and playing their drums," he said.

"It's just a different ballgame over there. The crowd is into it. They're singing, dancing, blowing horns. It's crazy. But I think it's great."