Nick Purdon, a current affairs reporter, and Leonardo Palleja, a producer and videographer with CBC’s The National, visited the Dominican Republic in April of 2013 to explore the dark side of baseball in the country. The 20 minute documentary feature above details the struggle for many Dominicans in their quest to climb out of poverty via baseball.

While the successes of players like Jose Bautista and Vladimir Guerrero serve as motivation for so many Dominican Republic teenagers, the tragic story of Juan Manuel Matos tells of the dangers of pushing 15 and 16-year old boys too hard. Juan Manuel Matos collapsed and died after being injected with steroids, as it has been purported. Matos was 15.

Purdon and Palleja’s account of the pursuit of Major League dreams is well worth your time, even if it’s a rather depressing look at the subject. The feature also enabled Peter Mansbridge to make his Getting Blanked debut.

Social media integration, y’all — the Cavs done have it. From Cavs.com:

Last Friday, May 17th, [Cavs owner Dan] Gilbert put out the call to his @cavsdan Twitter followers to produce and tweet a :30 second or less original video that creatively expressed why they should travel with him to New York for the lottery proceedings and help represent the Cavaliers. @RoyTateMoore did just that with a winning submission that demonstrated his positive karma to prove that he is “one lucky dude.” Below is the winning video @RoyTateMoore submitted. “I am so excited and thankful for this amazing opportunity. I can’t wait to be a part of this night and help represent the Cavaliers with Dan and Nick,” said Moore.

Between this kid and Lucky Nick Gilbert, the swaggiest bro of our generation, the Cavs are basically guaranteed to win the top pick this year. All they need now is a Greek in a shower and it’s a guaranteed victory.

(via Ananth Pandian)

I mean, the guy does works extremely hard, but come on, Healy. Datsyuk is Earth’s Most Talented Human as far as I’m concerned.

I understand not wasting time to bicker over a passing comment, but wow – that is some passing comment.

(S/t @HarrisonMooney)

I know this is shocking, but it’s been nearly three weeks since the last time we passed along a Robert Griffin III injury update of some kind. Specifically, 20 days and 20 nights have passed, and I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.

Since most of these posts will sound similar until, oh, August, I’ll keep this one bite-sized.

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This falls under the category of stuff you just don’t do. Keenan Allen, a rookie wide receiver who got drafted by the San Diego Chargers last month has some fans upset after sporting an Oakland Raiders (rival team) hat in a video he made on Vine. Allen hit up the In-N-Out burger joint and decided to post a short vid of his time there. Although there were some overreactions, Chargers fans weren’t happy:

@kaadeuce1 only an idiot would get drafted and post a vid of himself wearing the gear of a HATED rival. #smooth #benchplayer

— Justin Graham (@habitualistic) May 18, 2013

@kaadeuce1 dumbass! Wtf were you thinking? Good thing you did this now, I was getting ready to order your jersey. Manti it is!

— Sheermoz (@ShantTarbinian) May 19, 2013

 

@kaadeuce1 You’ve been traded to the Raiders. Wearing their colors means you have no clue about Charger nation!

— Sammy el Conservador (@SonofHope61) May 21, 2013

He has since deleted the video, so we can only muster up a screenshot, but when you’re dealing with die-hard fans, just don’t do things like that. Based on his Tweets, looked like he has learned his lesson:

I get it fans!!!! Won’t happen again!

— Keenan Allen (@KAAdeuce1) May 18, 2013

 

Tony Pulis set to leave Stoke City #scfc. More details later

— John Percy (@John__Percy) May 21, 2013

That’s from the Telegraph’s man in the Midlands. Already the Twitter machine is awash in debate over just what the hell Stoke are up to. While people generally maintain Pulis’ 4-5-1, physical mid, banging up balls to a tall centre-forward approach was a choice demanded by pragmatism and necessity, the tactic was always one option among several. Pulis spent years fashioning Stoke in the image of the game he knew best. It’s hard to imagine another side that would welcome Ryan Shawcross and Dean Whitehead with open arms.

The thing is, Stoke is now modelled on Pulis’ approach, and the major question is if the club can withstand a significant change in footballing style without ushering out a core group of players and buying new ones. And if they want to maintain those wet nights at Stoke, who could fill Pulis’ shoes? Even Big Sam doesn’t play that game any more…

After weeks of virtually nothing happening, the Bryan Colangelo saga and ensuing search for a possible replacement has really ramped up this long weekend. With today being the deadline for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to make a decision on Colangelo, we seem to be reaching a climax…

The MLSE had been negotiating with Raptors president Bryan Colangelo over weekend on a return in a “significant” capacity, sources tell Y!

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) May 20, 2013

The MLSE remains in full pursuit of Denver GM Masai Ujiri to assume full control of Raptors, sources tell Y!

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) May 20, 2013

Colangelo’s finalizing agreement to move over to business side, leaving basketball ops. Ownership preparing major financial offer for Ujiri.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) May 20, 2013

(My favourite part of this is Woj referring to MLSE as “The” MLSE like The Iron Sheik would)

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During my summers off while I was in university, I had a range of horrible jobs: laborer at a gun factory, framer for a residential development, junior member of a concrete cutting crew. During breaks from the often exhausting and always demoralizing duties, I would sit around with the other workers, and together, we’d remind ourselves of the virtues of working with our hands and being able to work toward a visible accomplishment on a day-to-day basis.

While there is certainly some merit to believing such traits to be beneficial, we mostly elevated the glory of our menial tasks for the purpose of justifying our current state and forgetting the bad decisions that led us to physical labor as a livelihood. In addition to fooling ourselves in this manner, we’d mock office workers, imagining their professions to be less honorable than our own.

“How can they feel any measure of self-worth?” we’d ask ourselves.

Ten years later, as part of my job, I would embed a YouTube clip of a Callaway Golf executive putting a golf ball down two sets of staggered stairs and into a cup. If my former co-workers could only see me now.

A seat at the 19th hole for Shane Bacon of the Devil Ball golf blog.