Plenty of local ties as Dominican Republic team comes to Lynn

LYNN – The Dominican all-star team that played the North Shore Navigators at Fraser Field on Thursday had plenty of local ties.Start with Yuri Sanchez, the Lynn Tech coach who also served as third base coach during the game, an 8-4 Navigators victory. After the game, Sanchez and several players spoke with a reporter in Spanish.Click here to a view a photo gallery from the Dominican baseball game against the North Shore Navigators.”The Dominican has the sport in his blood,” Sanchez said. “The Dominican that does not play baseball is not Dominican.”Massachusetts and the Dominican Republic are miles apart, but the players have some Lynn ties, including pitcher Jose Pimentel, who calls Lynn his hometown, and infielder Kirk Sencion, who is from the Dominican Republic but has lived in Lynn for four months.”I had a very good experience living in Lynn,” said Pimentel, who is from Bani City and is a current Lynn resident. “I learned a lot of things about people, and it is very different than Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic).”Pimentel added, “The baseball here is more organized (than the baseball in Santo Domingo).He likes the city and Fraser Field.”This stadium is beautiful, and they play very good ball here, and they have beautiful lights that we don’t have in our country,” Pimentel said.Things didn’t go too well for the Dominican all-stars on the scoreboard.”The players from the other team played very well,” said Pimentel, who began playing when he was 12 years old. “At the beginning, we started cold, but by the end, the batters were very hot (the all-stars scored three of their four runs in the final inning). When we combine both of them, we will be OK.”While the all-stars lost, they found plenty of fan support.”When they talk about baseball, the Dominicans community is going to support us,” Sanchez said. “The people, at the end of the game, wanted to keep partying. A lot of my family came to see the game, and people from New York and New Jersey came to see us.”For me, it is an honor to represent my country, and I feel like half of me is from Lynn and the other half is Dominican.”Their Dominican countrymen have gone on to big-league success, both for the Boston Red Sox and in the major leagues in general; think Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz. The Dominicans showed promise on the field on Thursday, such as Leonardo Vitorio’s running, sprawling catch to take away extra bases.So, like Bogie and Claude Rains at the end of Casablanca, the game between the Dominican Republic and the North Shore Navigators could mean the beginning – or, perhaps, the continuation – of a beautiful friendship.