By Mac McCarthy, Zenergo
Bernice and Ken Munoz with their extended "family" of players
Ken and Bernice Munoz, who are big fans of the San Francisco Giants baseball team, saw an ad in their San Jose, California newspaper one day six years ago looking for families to host ball players coming to play in the San Jose Giants minor-league team for the summer.
These are young players from all over the U.S. and the world who have been signed by San Francisco Giants scouts. They train at various camps and minor-league teams, many of them ending up in San Jose–just a step away from the chance to get picked up by the major-league team.
But they are only paid about $1,000 a month — not enough to live on in this expensive Northern California area — not enough for rent, food, and transportation. “Less than a busboy, on a per-day basis,” Ken points out. So the Giants Host Family Program recruits fan families to open their homes for the season.
Ken and Bernice, who own a high-tech specialty lighting company, Radiant Source Technology, decided to give it a try; it would be a good experience for their then-teenaged son Adam and daughter Taylor to get to know people from other countries and other cultures. The Munoz family asked for Spanish-speaking players so they could practice the Spanish they had grown up with (but that was getting rusty), and their children would benefit from that too.
In the six years since, they’ve hosted a dozen players — from South America and Latin America, as well as a Cuban defector. They say it’s been a most satisfying experience for the whole family.
LIKE AN Extended Family
The young players become part of the Munoz’ extended family, says Bernice. “We go to Spring Training for three or four days, take our player to dinner. They teach us things, like how to cook the kinds of foods they like best. We also learn the different accents and speaking styles of the Spanish-speaking kids from different countries. “Cubans speak very fast, like New Yorkers,” says Bernice, “running everything together, making it very hard to understand until you get used to it!”
The young players do get homesick. But people come up to San Jose from South America to visit their players – family, friends, girlfriends, wives. The wife of one player was pregnant when she visited — when the child was born, the parents referred to the Munoz’ as grandparents! Bernice says she gets three or four calls each Mother’s Day from the players they’ve hosted.
Each year the new player shows up and it’s like you’re opening a new gift, says Ken. What will our player be like this year? Some of them are quiet, some full of mischief.
This summer they host Hector E. Sanchez, a 21-year-old catcher from Maracay, Venezuela. He was signed at 16, spent a year with the Salem-Kaiser Volcanoes, and last year in the Augusta Green Jackets (a low-A Ball team). He went to the San Jose Giants Spring Training in Arizona, then came to the Munoz home in April — and already, by early March, had played 26 games! He bats just under .300. Like many catchers, Ken says, he speaks good English because catchers have to be able to communicate, to talk to the pitcher — “The catcher is the coach on the field,” says Ken Munoz.
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Most of the players hosted by the Munoz family start as kids from Latin American and South America who are signed by scouts to a contract at 16 years of age. They start the long road towards the Bigs by training in a series of training camps and ball clubs — two years in the Dominican Republic, then to the U.S. at 18. Here they start in Rookie Ball, then get further instruction at the A Ball league Augusta for a year, then they head to Short Season in Salem-Kaiser, Oregon, or Triple A Ball with the San Jose Giants for a year.
It’s can be a brutal life, minor-league baseball. They play every day, seven days a week, getting maybe one day off a month. There are lots of bus trips and late nights. The San Jose Giants players that the Munoz’ host, for example, might get sent by team bus down to Southern California one afternoon to play a night game, finish at 11pm, get back on the bus and head home, getting back at three or four a.m. — then have to report to the field in San Jose by 11 a.m. that morning for the next game. They learn to sleep upright on a bus.
By the time these kids are 20 or 21, they’ve been in the organization for three or four years.
If they don’t get cut along the way, that is.
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After the Season — Or Getting Cut
As soon as the season is over, Giants Host Family Coordinator Linda Pereira starts sending them their flight documents. By this time, they are really homesick, and they really want to go home. Bernice once asked their player, “Would you rather have your team go to the playoffs, or would you rather go home?” Without hesitation: “Go home..!”
Not many of the young players make it all the way to the Big Leagues, of course. After spring training, the players scatter to their assigned teams — or are released. Getting cut from the team is tough on the kids — most don’t have many prospects other than baseball, with not much education and no skills training. Their whole lives have been about baseball, since they were kids. Getting signed by American leagues is the greatest thing to happen to them — it made them superstars at home. They get cut. As Ken says, “At some point (in your baseball career) someone tells you you’re done — a game you’ve played since you were five, and now you’re 21 — and finished.”
Not all of them go home, though. Some, like Cuban defector Yosanda Ibanez, keep going in independent ball (and Ibanez comes by to visit the Munoz’ from time to time). Others go on to become instructors. Their first-year their kid, Guillermo Rodriguez, did a half season with the SF Giants, then a season with the Orioles. Now is a coach/roaming instructor for the San Francisco Giants.
One player met a girl, stayed in the country after release, got married, and now has a family of his own here.
I touched on this one last year and, based on the post’s popularity, it leads me to believe that more and more of the casual fantasy baseball players are starting to, not just get it, but use it. Forget about the formula for calculating. If you’re that curious, then check out the 
