From good pitcher to worker in the hills of Bonao

At the beginning of the 90’s, Apolinar García traveled with a glove and spikes in his hands to the training sessions of the Aguilas Cibaeñas, a successful franchise of which in his six seasons there he had the responsibility of being one of its spearheads in the starting pitching. .

His time in Dominican baseball was one of dedication, smiles and achievements that in regular series accumulated a mark of 29-22 with a 3.18 ERA, whose harvest extended with strength to the Round Robin and final series, in which he appears in the main lines among the monticulistas in those parts where baseball crowns are defined.

Today, his achievements and accumulated successes are only part of a beautiful memory, whose medals and trophies that in the past generated satisfactions and smiles today are lost between sadness and worries, because after his retirement in 2001, life for Apolinar has been of hardships with few moments of colors and roses.

Those tools that he displayed with pride and determination after walking through various areas of Cibao Park, today have been transformed into shovels, machetes, mochas, aza among other objects, since unfortunately his life has been transformed from the mounds of the Dominican stadiums to the hard Work tasks as a worker in the mountains of his native Bonao, a place where among wasps, mosquitoes, ants and a species of these called jibijoa, the winner of 14 matches in All Against All earns his living as a worker.

Apolinar, who in February 1987 signed as a professional with the Oakland Athletics under Don Juan Marichal, played for 10 seasons in the Minors without ever tasting the sweetness that being promoted to the Major Leagues represents and his greatest support was when he pitched in the Dominican Republic. , mainly with the Aguilas, in which in its prime it reached a pay of about 40 thousand pesos a month.

Without having built his fortune as a pitcher, unlike other colleagues, who did act at the Major League level, García works on a farm in Los Llanos that belongs to one of his brothers, Bienvenido García, where he has first been responsible for cleaning large part of the 150 tasks to later sow them with lemon, bananas, yucca and other rubles.

Who in his golden age arrived at the stadiums in a Nissan 240, today a passola is his means of transport that takes him to the hills of El llano, the uniform that he exhibited with any of the five teams in which he threw in the winter ball, It has been changed for long-sleeved trousers and a sweater, accompanied by an old hat.

“The bustle is very strong, every day at six in the morning I am heading to the mountains, regardless of the cold in the first hours, nor the sun when the day progresses, he worked more than 12 hours,” says, who was one One of the first pitchers to sign and hail from Bonao.

Garcia has been in these tasks for just over three years, in which he earns a salary of 12 thousand pesos a month, an amount that is not even moderately enough for his livelihood. He currently lives with his wife Juana Esperanza Pérez, who is the mother of two children, 17-year-old Darling Manuel Ortiz and 14-year-old Darlenny María Espino. The ex-pitcher has children of another marriage.

The expitcher, 56 years old and who represented the country in Central American Games (Santiago 86) and Pan-American (Winipeg, Canada 1999) does not hesitate to request a pension from the Dominican Government or included in the Viejas Glorias program or receive any type of collaboration, of any kind that may come from either the National Federation of Professional Players, from Las Aguilas, a franchise to which he gave the best of his talent or another entity that provides support to baseball players or athletes in general.

“As long as I have strength and can work I will do it, but if I can achieve something more related to what my life was in sport, it would be much better for me and the family,” says the former pitcher, a member of two eagle teams that won the crown in winter baseball, as well as a three-time member of the Dominican teams that attended the Caribbean Series.

He remembers that in the recent past he received some help from the Aguilas, for which he will always be grateful from Winston Llenas, one of the historical pillars of this organization, but it has not reached him for a while.