RAYS OPEN BASEBALL ACADEMY IN BRAZIL

The American League champion Tampa Bay Rays announced last week that they have entered into an agreement with the city of Marilia, Brazil to construct and open that country’s first baseball academy operated by a major league organization. The complex is expected to be built in 2009, with the cost borne by both local and Brazilian government funding. It will include two full playing fields, two diamonds for youth teams and a dormitory for up to 40 players. The academy will be overseen by Adrian de Souza, who was hired earlier this year by Tampa Bay to scout for Brazilian prospects. There are currently twelve minor leaguers from Brazil, but no player from the soccer-mad country has ever made it to the majors.

In addition to searching for baseball talent in a nation with a population of over 200 million people, the Rays will also introduce the game to groups between 7 and 14 years of age in the Marilia area. Marilia is a city of about 225,000 residents northeast of Brazil’s capital of Sao Paolo. Rays president Andrew Friedman says the team’s special assistant of baseball operations Andres Reiner has worked for years on the Brazilian project, which Friedman acknowledges is “obviously a long-term initiative” that is not “going to pay dividends in a year from now, necessarily.”

The Rays also operate baseball academies in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.