Part 15 (1/2)

2008.

Jose Arredondo.

Jose Juan Arredondo was born on March 30, 1984, in San Pedro de Macors. A right-handed relief pitcher, he signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on June 25, 2002. He debuted for the Angels in the major leagues on May 14, 2008, against the Chicago White Sox and gave up a home run to the first batter he faced, Nick Swisher. Nevertheless he finished the season with a promising 1.62 ERA.

APPENDIX TWO.

A Dominican Chronology.

The Country, Sugar, and Baseball.

600 Tainos drive off the Ciboney and become the dominant population on the island, calling it Quisqueya, meaning ”mother of the earth.”

1492 Christopher Columbus arrives.

1493 La Isabela, the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, is founded by Columbus on the north coast of the island.

1496 Santo Domingo is founded.

1506 First Dominican sugar harvest is brought in.

1586 Sir Francis Drake attacks and nearly destroys Santo Domingo.

1605 In an attempt to stop smuggling, the Spanish force settlers to abandon the west of the island. French move in.

1697 Spain cedes the western third of the island to the French, who make it a prosperous sugar colony built on African slavery.

1791 Uprising takes place by the 480,000 slaves in the French colony.

1795 While putting down the rebellion in their colony, French troops take over the Spanish side.

1801 Toussaint-L'ouverture, a former slave, declares an independent nation of Haiti. Napoleon sends his troops.

1804 Napoleon is defeated. Jean-Jacques Dessalines becomes the leader of the first independent black republic and gives it the Arawak name Haiti.

1808 French troops are overthrown by colonists and the eastern side is returned to Spain.

1821 Spanish colonists declare the independent state of Haiti Espaol and ask to join Simn Bolvar's Gran Colombia.

1822 Haiti Espaol invaded and occupied by Haitian forces.

1844 Dominicans declare their independence and drive out the Haitian military.

1845 A Manhattan book dealer, Alexander Cartwright, writes first definitive rule book for baseball.

1861 Country again comes under Spanish rule.

1863 Civil war breaks out between pro-Spanish and pro-independence movements.

1864 During civil war, last doc.u.mented record of pure Tainos is written by Dominican soldiers who were being attacked by them.

1865 Dominican Republic becomes an independent nation again.

1866 According to popular legend, first baseball game in Cuba takes place in Matanzas.

1871 Annexation of the Dominican Republic is rejected by the U.S. Senate.

1879 Juan Antonio Amechazurra, a Cuban, opens the first ingenio, Ingenio Angelina, a steam-powered sugar mill.

1880 San Pedro de Macors granted permission to become an international port.

1881 Another Cuban, Santiago W. Mellor, founds Ingenio Porvenir.

1882 At the height of a sugar boom, Ulises Heureux becomes the first Dominican dictator. He plunges country so deeply into debt that it has never recovered.

1882 Ingenio Cristbal Coln and Ingenio Consuelo start up.

1891 Cubans form two competing baseball clubs in Santo Domingo.

1893 Sugar companies in San Pedro start recruiting workers from Saint Thomas, Saint John, Saint Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Antigua, and Saint Martin.

1898 After this season, blacks are completely banned from both major-league and minor-league baseball.

1899 Heureux is a.s.sa.s.sinated.

1906 Licey team is founded in Santo Domingo.

1911 Licey defeats San Pedro.

1916 United States Marines invade and occupy.

1920 Kenesaw Mountain Landis, known for racist views as judge, is appointed the first U.S. commissioner of baseball.

1922 Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic produce thirty-eight percent of the world's cane sugar and twenty-seven percent of total world sugar.

1924 U.S. Marines leave.

1930 Rafael Leonidas Trujillo comes to power.

1936 Santo Domingo is renamed Ciudad Trujillo.