"Life gives you lots of opportunities; baseball gives you one."

Miguel Santos (known as Sugar) is trying to parlay that one opportunity into a good life. Sugar is a young pitcher at a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic. Many Dominican players have made it to the Major Leagues in America. In fact, 15 percent of MLB players are from the Dominican Republic, more than any country other than the U.S. There are even more Dominican players in the minors—all hoping to work their way up the ladder.

For many of the ball players in the Dominican, baseball is seen as a way out of poverty. (Per capita income is $3000, ball players usually get about $20,000 as a signing bonus.) They get paid a bit while in the academy, but if they make it to the minors, they get even more money to help their families. And if they make it to the majors, their families would be set. Sugar is mindful of his family's dependence on him. He carries quite a weight with him as he tries to climb that ladder.

Sugar is taking the first step up that ladder—going to the U.S. for spring training and the chance to play in the American minor leagues. It's not easy. It isn't only about baseball ability. Sugar and the other Dominican players we see are coming to a new country where they don't even know how to order food in a restaurant. (In the academy they've been drilled on baseball-related vocabulary like "I've got it" and "home run," but not on the difference between scrambled, over-easy or sunny side up.) Sugar ends up playing Class A ball in Iowa, where he is assigned to live with a farm family who try to help him adjust.

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