Culture

A Dazzling New Foray into Speculative Fiction From Emily St. John Mandel

Published

3 years ago

March 30, 2022

A Dazzling New Foray into Speculative Fiction From Emily St. John Mandel

Roberts grew up on the moon within the late twenty fourth century. When the story turns, lastly, to him, it’s the daybreak of the twenty fifth, and our thriller man is at free ends, working as a home detective on the Grand Luna Resort. Although relocated to the high-functioning Colony One, the nostalgia-prone Roberts is haunted by his upbringing within the comparatively derelict Colony Two, a.ok.a. the Evening Metropolis, “the place the place the sky was at all times black,” as a result of the failure of the protecting dome’s synthetic lighting system was judged too costly to repair. His work on the resort, the place he’s paid simply to be current and take note of what occurs round him, would appear like doubtful preparation for another job, however he quickly takes up a brand new place in his good sister Zoey’s store, a most curious entity known as the Time Institute. At this level, there have already been hints about the place and when his uncommon new job will take him, however the why of his journey — an investigation into the anomalous imaginative and prescient, which can have alarming implications in regards to the nature of actuality — has but to be unfurled.

Mandel has labored adroitly with a number of timelines in her earlier books, leaping backwards and forwards between the previous, current and future to discover killer viruses and Madoff-inspired Ponzi schemes. Her characters, too, have often felt temporally discombobulated. In “The Glass Resort,” for instance, a key participant, the above-mentioned Vincent, says, “I’m conscious of a border however I can’t inform which aspect I’m on, and it appears I can transfer between reminiscences like strolling from one room to the following.” She additionally says, extra plainly, “I’m out of time.”

In ‘Sea of Tranquility,’ Mandel presents certainly one of her best novels and certainly one of her most satisfying forays into the world of speculative fiction but.

In “Sea of Tranquility,” Mandell makes that metaphor — feeling out of sync — fairly literal and makes use of a machine to ship Roberts and others out on missions throughout time. The twentieth, twenty first, twenty third and twenty fifth centuries are all visited right here with loads of now-familiar, pop-culture concern about temporal well being expressed alongside the best way.

If this had been a special kind of novel, it could be affordable to stress that tales like Ray Bradbury’s basic “A Sound of Thunder,” novels like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-5,” tv reveals like “Dr. Who,” sure episodes of “Star Trek: The Subsequent Technology” and even Disney’s current madcap “Loki,” had achieved time journey tales higher, or at the least earlier, and normally with extra elaborately imagined tech. However Mandel is interested by one thing aside from limning the highs and lows of timeline trotting and determining what to do — it’s by no means good, is it? — when somebody like Roberts steps off the trail, as he ultimately does, to attempt to assist somebody up to now. Certainly, although the speculative parts in “Sea of Tranquility” (which was written throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and discusses the crushing affect of pandemics extra broadly) are set in service of an try to make some sense of giant societal and existential crises and pose good outdated questions like what does it imply to be alive, Mandel’s novel has extra in widespread with tech-minimized sci-fi outings like Kazuo Ishiguro’s “By no means Let Me Go.”

In “Sea of Tranquility,” Mandel presents certainly one of her best novels and certainly one of her most satisfying forays into the world of speculative fiction but, however it’s her capacity to convincingly inhabit the extraordinary, and her capacity to venture a sustaining acknowledgment of magnificence, that units the novel aside. As in Ishiguro, this isn’t born of some low cost, made-for-television, faux-emotional gimmick or mechanism, however of empathy and hard-won understanding, superbly constructed into language, for all of us who inhabit this “green-and-blue world” and who at some point would possibly reside properly past.

Culture

Is Mikel Arteta right – do footballs really make a difference to performance?

Published

7 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Is Mikel Arteta right – do footballs really make a difference to performance?

This article was updated on January 9 to reflect the ball being used in Sunday’s FA Cup third round game between Arsenal and Manchester United.

Mikel Arteta was in no doubt.

Arsenal’s manager was dissecting a painful 2-0 home defeat against Newcastle United in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first leg when — unprompted by any journalist in the room — he raised an unlikely issue that, he felt, helps explain his team’s inability to convert any of their 23 shots on the night into goals.

“We also kicked a lot of balls over the bar, and it’s tricky that these balls fly a lot, so there are details that we can do better,” Arteta said in the post-match press conference.

When asked to expand on his comments later, he added: “(The Carabao Cup ball) very different to a Premier League ball, and you have to adapt to that because it flies differently. When you touch it, the grip is also very different, so you adapt to that.”

Arsenal were certainly profligate, with Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz and Jurrien Timber all spurning fine opportunities. But was the ball being used — the Orbita 1, made by German manufacturer Puma — really to blame?

Newcastle forwards Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon seemed to have no issues with it as they converted their own side’s chances, and the ball hadn’t held Arsenal back in previous rounds in the competition, where they scored 11 goals in three games against Preston North End, Bolton Wanderers and Crystal Palace.

Arteta’s complaints were met with a sceptical response in many quarters, not least from the English Football League (EFL), which organises the Carabao Cup, English football’s No 2 cup competition after the FA Cup.

“In addition to the Carabao Cup, the same ball has been successfully used in other major European leagues, including both Serie A and La Liga and our three divisions in the EFL,” it said in a statement. “All clubs play with the same ball (in the competition), and we have received no further comments of this nature following any of the previous 88 fixtures which have taken place in this season’s Carabao Cup.”

Puma is yet to respond to The Athletic’s request for comment.

But was Arteta’s outburst so outlandish? There are, after all, two external factors (aside from the players) which materially affect the outcome of a football match — the pitch and the ball. It stands to reason, therefore, that any unexpected variation in either of those could potentially influence the outcome.

As Premier League clubs, Arsenal and Newcastle are used to training and playing with the Nike Flight ball. U.S. company Nike has supplied the footballs used in England’s top flight since the 2000-01 season, when it replaced British firm Mitre as ball manufacturer, and players have prepared for and played with its balls in league matches ever since. Occasionally, however, they are obliged to change.

Arsenal also feature in the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Champions League this season, with a different ball (made by other manufacturers) used in each instance. In addition to Puma’s Orbita 1, Adidas supplies the balls for the Champions League and Mitre for the FA Cup.

On Thursday, it was confirmed that the ball being used in Sunday’s third-round tie with Manchester United at the Emirates Stadium would be a special gold edition of the Ultimax Pro model — a nod to United having won the competition last season.

Something for the winners… 🏆
As current holders of @EmiratesFACup 23/24 season, @ManUtd will play with this gold limited edition Ultimax Pro match ball in the 3rd round tie against Arsenal on Sunday.
Advertisement

Let’s see if they can take it all the way to the final… pic.twitter.com/LlekjNQAZh
— Mitre Sports (@MitreSports) January 9, 2025

Though they all have similar dimensions and are made from similar materials, slight alterations in design can make a marked difference.“The more ‘perfect’ a ball is, the more likely it is to be erratic,” says Justin Lea, founder of ball manufacturer Hayworth Athletic. “They all have their own personalities. If you look at the FIFA ball rules, there are ranges for everything. A ball can only retain a certain amount of water if a field is wet. There’s a range to the sphericity of the ball and the bounce of the ball.”

The game’s laws state a regulation size-5 ball must be 68-70cm (26.8-27.6in) in circumference and weigh between 410 and 450 grams (14-16 oz) at the start of the match. It must also be inflated to a pressure of 0.6-1.1 bars at sea level.

The Premier League is using the Nike Flight 2024 ball (Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

“There’s a certain amount of intuition with a ball,” says Lea. “The Brilliant Super from Select, for example, kind of goes where you want it to go. But the more ‘perfect’ a ball is, the more likely it is to be erratic. Some with thermal bonding technology and higher-end materials can get so spherical that the dynamics and the trajectory change. They can go in a lot of different directions.”

At the 2010 men’s World Cup in South Africa, it wasn’t just the honking sound of fans blowing vuvuzelas, a trumpet-like musical instrument, in the crowd that dominated discussion. Adidas’ now infamous Jabulani was also a hot topic, becoming arguably the most recognised and disputed ball in the sport’s modern history.

The Jabulani consisted of eight thermally bonded panels with a textured surface (named Grip ‘n’ Groove by Adidas), which were said to improve aerodynamics. For the players in that World Cup, however, it proved to be a nightmare, with goalkeepers and outfield players alike complaining about the balls swerving uncontrollably after being kicked.

“It’s sad that such an important competition has such an important element like this ball of appalling condition,” said Iker Casillas, whose Spain side would go on to win the final, in comments reported by the BBC. According to Brazilian news outlet O Globo, meanwhile, Brazil player Julio Cesar described it as “horrible” and like “the ones sold in supermarkets”.

Casillas did not like the 2010 World Cup’s Jabulani ball (Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the most vehement opposers was former Liverpool midfielder Craig Johnston, who became an expert in the appliance of science to football equipment after his playing career ended and helped design the original Adidas Predator boot. In a 12-page letter of complaint to world football governing body FIFA’s then president Sepp Blatter that was acquired by UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Johnston wrote, “Whoever is responsible for this should be taken out and shot for crimes against football.”

The general contemporary opinion surrounding the Jabulani was that it was not fit for purpose, but it was not universally disliked.

Clint Dempsey, who sneaked a shot under goalkeeper Rob Green’s body to equalise in the USMNT’s 1-1 group-stage draw with England, said in a pre-tournament press conference reported by FOX Sports: “If you just hit it solid, you can get a good knuckle on the ball… you’ve just got to pay a little bit more attention when you pass the ball sometimes.”

It also provided former Uruguay and Manchester United striker Diego Forlan with his defining tournament.

His former national-team colleague Diego Abreu told Uruguayan outlet El Futbolero in 2020 that Forlan got Adidas to send him a Jabulani three months before the World Cup started, and that he would practise shooting and taking free kicks with it. As it transpired, Forlan finished as the tournament’s joint-top scorer, with his five goals helping Uruguay reach the semi-finals. Such was his mastery of the Jabulani, he also left South Africa with the Goal of the Tournament award and the Golden Ball, presented to whoever gets voted the competition’s best player.

Forlan practised extensively with a Jabulani before the 2010 World Cup (Rodrigo Arangua/AFP via Getty Images)

The Jabulani remains possibly the most extreme modern example of a football’s effect on the quality and trajectory of a shot, and it’s unlikely we will see an outlier like that again. Still, many players feel noticeable differences when switching between different makes of balls even 15 years later.

“When I went to the Premier League, and I started playing with the Nike ones compared to the Mitre balls in the Championship, I found they felt so much lighter,” says former Reading and Cardiff City striker Adam Le Fondre. “I felt like I was going to get a bit more movement with it.

“Mitre balls were more like cannonballs. They wouldn’t move or deviate off plan — they’d act in a straight manner. As a striker, you might want to get a bit more of a wobble on it, or even if you don’t connect with it well, the Nike ball in the Premier League might still have gone in. They gave me a little bit more help.”

It’s not just in football this happens, either.

In October, Los Angeles Lakers head coach JJ Redick complained about using new basketballs instead of already broken-in ones in the NBA.

“I’m gonna send in a request for the league tomorrow that we play with worn-in basketballs,” Redick, who previously spent 15 seasons in the NBA as a player, told various outlets in a post-match press conference. “I’m not sure why we can play in real games with brand-new basketballs. Anybody who has ever touched an NBA ball brand new — it has a different feel and touch than a worn-in basketball.”

Lakers head coach Redick was unhappy at using new basketballs rather than worn-in ones (Sam Hodde/Getty Images)

At the beginning of the 2021-22 season, the NBA switched its ball manufacturer from Spalding to Wilson, which was cited as one of the reasons for a slump in shooting percentages across the league. “It’s just a different basketball. It doesn’t have the same touch and softness the Spalding ball had,” said Philadelphia 76ers forward Paul George in a post-match press conference. “You’ll see a lot of bad misses this year. You’ve seen a lot of airballs (shots that miss the hoop, net and even backboard entirely). Again, not to make an excuse or put any blame on the basketball, but it is different.”

It wasn’t long before players became accustomed to the different feel of the Wilson balls, and shooting percentages rose again. Still, it highlights how minor differences can affect elite athletes who are familiar with a particular piece of equipment.

Arsenal used the Puma Orbita 1 in training on Monday during the short turnaround between their 1-1 Premier League draw with Brighton on Saturday and the meeting with Newcastle (who have had extra time to get used to the Puma ball, as they entered this season’s Carabao Cup one round earlier than Arsenal, due to the latter getting a bye having qualified for Europe). But, judging by his comments, Arteta must surely be wondering if he should roll them out sooner in preparation for the decisive second leg at St James’ Park on February 5.

Besides, any extra time his players get with those balls could serve as Forlan-like preparation for next season — Puma has a deal to be the official football supplier to the Premier League from 2025-26 onwards.

(Top photos: Arteta and the controversial Orbita 1; Getty Images)

Culture

Book Review: ‘We Tried to Tell Y’All’ by Meredith D. Clark

Published

15 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Book Review: ‘We Tried to Tell Y’All’ by Meredith D. Clark

WE TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives, by Meredith D. Clark

Do you remember where you were in early December 2020? It was peak pandemic, so chances are you were at home and online. And if you were Black and on Twitter, you were probably reading or tweeting about the Negro Solstice.

On Dec. 5, an argument about the authenticity of the coronavirus ended with a pandemic denier saying that for Black people, on the upcoming winter solstice, during this extraordinary planetary conjunction, “our Real DNA will be unlocked.”

The twinned cosmic events seemed star-crossed to a few other Twitter users, and what followed is what the chronically online like to call a “poster’s holiday.” Jokes flew among Black people about turning into the X-Men, levitating, acquiring powers and beaming themselves into the future. People uploaded selfies with photoshopped glowing laser eyes. Someone refashioned the logo from the 2006 show “Heroes” into “Negros.”

Meredith D. Clark, a professor of race and political communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, uses this example to kick off her new book, “We Tried to Tell Y’All: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives.” She writes that the #NegroSolstice was a “life-affirming signal that Black people were somehow surviving a second year of lockdowns — and with our humor intact.”

It was undeniably one of the better chapters on late Twitter, yet few people outside the intended community knew what to make of it — if they knew about it at all. One person Clark interviewed for her book described Black Twitter as “a powerful, parallel Twitter,” and it often felt that way, like being in a kitchen at a party and having a completely different — and often more interesting — conversation than the main one going on in the living room.

Although it was all so chronologically recent — and although some denatured forms of it still exist — Clark noticed that young people around her seemed to be, already, forgetting the glory days of Black Twitter, and their importance. Often when an academic writes about a cultural phenomenon that exists outside the mainstream consciousness, there’s an attempt to explain it as a means to legitimize it. Clark, instead, memorializes Black Twitter, hoping to prevent further perversion of Black innovation, Black language, culture and style. (Just look at the complete and utter devolution of “woke.”)

Black Twitter’s most lasting legacy, according to Clark, is pulling off a “full-scale revolution” in how American news media reported on Black people — which she correctly argues has a direct correlation to how people perceive the value of Black life and govern it. She intends the book as a warning: To continue on in the tradition of white media elites will lead to a further disenfranchisement of nonwhite people (and working-class white people, too) and will lead to the collapse of the country. Her warning has prescience: It’s here.

For a time, Black Twitter forced the world to pay attention to Black people and their concerns. Clark describes its contributions as “a collective intervention on mainstream media narratives about Black life in America in the early 21st century.”

She gives the example of the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown, created in response to the mainstream media’s use of discriminatory headlines and photographs of Michael Brown to construct a narrative of criminality after he was killed by Darren Wilson. Or the way Black Twitter compared the acquittal of Casey Anthony with the conviction of Shanesha Taylor, a young mother put in jail for leaving her kids in the car during a job interview. Each of these instances — and there are dozens, if not hundreds — lays bare the hypocrisy in our legal system and how it is normalized by unconscious journalistic biases.

Anyone who relied on Black Twitter as a source of relief and entertainment knows the community served as an antidote to the constant gaslighting that comes with living in America.

Clark excavates deeper: She doesn’t just ratify jokes and meme culture as collective processing. She frames the larger phenomenon as a necessary infrastructure of accountability that has been denied and would not be available any other way. Black Twitter exists for laughs, of course, but it also exists to resist the sane-washing of America (and the world) by constantly refuting the racist assumptions that underline Black existence in America and are often fortified by the media. If there’s a modern race and class consciousness online, it’s in large part because of Black Twitter.

The book does not fully tangle with the cost of being in these spaces and doing this work publicly — the harassment and the data surveillance and mining whose tolls we cannot yet fully understand. Sure, people launched careers off their accounts, but we made less money than was made off us, and there are a number of uncanny and unnerving similarities to all of the predominantly white industries — sports, music, Hollywood — that have extorted and extracted value from Black creatives since the beginning of time.

Also, Clark’s book implies that the cohesion of Black Twitter rarely splintered. But by omitting most of the ways Black Twitter occasionally cannibalized itself, Clark chooses to focus on a collective goodness of Black culture online — as if everyone shares the same goals of social justice, or even the definition of liberation.

Part of the magic of Black Twitter is (was?) how boundless it seemed at times. There may have been people who felt part of that community but didn’t post about it, or tweet along hashtag lines. It’s impossible to know what the group thought, universally, because the group itself was almost impossible to quantify.

Still, it would have been fascinating to read more on how certain debates crystallized along lines of class, gender and sexuality. For instance, the misogynoir funneled at Megan Thee Stallion after she was shot by Tory Lanez seems to fall outside the window of Clark’s research, despite having exploded Black Twitter’s notions of Black femme sexuality and agency. (It’s also worth noting that the word “transphobia” appears only twice in the book.)

Clark finished her book before the blast ratio of Elon Musk’s takeover of the site could be fully comprehended, but the same question lingers over her formidable body of work. What does the future hold? That’s for a different book.

Black Twitter has waned, but it is far from over. The conditions that created the need for Black Twitter have not dissipated; if anything, they are only intensifying. What Clark carefully and lovingly outlines is too necessary not to repeat itself. It was a rare moment in history to be in control of the narratives created about us. And at least for now, there’s a blueprint to know how to start again when the time is right.

WE TRIED TO TELL Y’ALL: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives | By Meredith D. Clark | Oxford University Press | 174 pp. | Paperback, $24.99

Culture

“Se habla LIDOM”: How Peligro Sports fuels Dominican baseball passion in New York City

Published

23 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

“Se habla LIDOM”: How Peligro Sports fuels Dominican baseball passion in New York City

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — Once inside Peligro Sports, one thing above all else is clear: if you ever need a baseball cap, jersey or a T-shirt for one of the six teams in La Liga de Béisbol Profesional de la República Dominicana, the Dominican winter baseball league (or LIDOM, as it is known), this is the place to be.

And that’s rare.

When it comes to LIDOM gear, whether you’re a diehard fan born and raised in the Dominican Republic, part of the Dominican-American diaspora in the United States, married into a Dominican family or just a collector who can never have enough baseball caps, finding merchandise, especially the caps, is way harder than it should be.

Options for merchandise are limited. You can go to a live game and check the stadium stores or try your luck at a Dominican mall. You can visit the official LIDOM website, but it often sells out. Or, just slightly less fun than a trip to the Dominican Republic, you can go to Peligro Sports, a baseball merchandise mecca centered around LIDOM, MLB, the World Baseball Classic and Latino pride. (Can’t make it to Washington Heights? Peligro is also on Amazon and eBay).

LIDOM hits full swing in the late fall and winter, nestled between the final out of the World Series and pitchers and catchers reporting for MLB spring training. The league’s six teams — Tigres del Licey, Estrellas Orientales, Leones del Escogido, Toros del Este, Gigantes de Cibao and Águilas Cibaeñas — jockey for the top four positions in the standings to qualify for the round robin tournament that determines a champion each season. That champion then represents the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean World Series. Multiple generations of Dominican baseball players have played in LIDOM over the years at the beginning and ends of their pro baseball careers from Miguel Tejada (Águilas) to Elly De La Cruz (Licey).

Before opening Peligro’s doors, a display window greets customers with two mannequins decked out in the full uniforms of Dominican baseball titans Águilas and Licey, the island nation’s two most popular teams and LIDOM’s most intense rivalry. It’s Santo Domingo vs. Santiago. A clash of blue and gold with a wealth of titles between the two. Think New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox or San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers, and then sprinkle a lot of sazón on it. Licey is the current LIDOM champion, having won back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024 and has (for now) surpassed Águilas for most in LIDOM history with 24 to Águilas’s 22.

The mannequins speak without saying a word. At Peligro Sports, se habla LIDOM.

Jose Mateo, the owner of the shop, arrived in Washington Heights from his hometown of La Vega, Dominican Republic in 1989, bringing with him his love of Dominican winter baseball. He started his first business in 1991, a semi-prelude to Peligro Sports called Peligro Sandwiches. The top draw was the “chimi,” a toasted Dominican specialty, but there were also arcade games to be played and baseball cards to be bought and traded. A local high school baseball star and fellow Dominican named Manny Ramirez was a regular customer and now a long-time friend of Mateo’s (a signed and framed Ramirez jersey hangs in his office). When the record shop next to Mateo’ sandwich business went up for sale, he bought it with the intent of turning it into a sporting goods store.

Between 2009 and 2010, after years of renovation and investment, Peligro Sports was born, offering a mix of LIDOM caps, jerseys and other memorabilia, baseball bats and gloves, shoes, and WBC merchandise. That fire, sky blue Mexico fitted from the WBC? Peligro’s got it.

Mateo remembers the pre-internet days of the early ‘90s when Dominicans in New York had to go to extremes for LIDOM game recaps and box scores. Some would wait for days after a game until Dominican newspapers were delivered to New York. Others, who couldn’t wait that long, would purchase phone cards to make long-distance calls to relatives in the Dominican Republic who could give them live updates of games over the phone.

Passion for LIDOM baseball in New York was undeniable both then and now, giving Peligro an ongoing purpose in Washington Heights’ vibrant Dominican community.

“(Peligro Sports) happened with a little bit of business vision,” Mateo said in Spanish. “I saw (Dominican fans in New York) had needs for (LIDOM) products because no one else had them anywhere, and the Dominican community (in Washington Heights) was growing. People would ask where they could get this (hat) and that (T-shirt). More than just me being a fan of Dominican baseball, I realized as much as I like (LIDOM merchandise) other people can like it too.”

Mateo is a LIDOM encyclopedia for anyone who enters Peligro Sports with questions on the league’s merchandise. And not just because LIDOM is also a family affair for him. His cousin, Wellington Cepeda, is the manager of Gigantes de Cibao, the last team to win a LIDOM title before Licey’s current reign.

Mateo points out that LIDOM’s baseball cap situation is unique. If you want to wear the same caps that the players wear on the field (a common desire for any baseball fan), you’ve got to pay attention. New Era, the official maker of every MLB team’s caps, is the current manufacturer for four of LIDOM’s six teams: Gigantes, Toros, Estrellas and Águilas.

San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. could be seen in previous LIDOM seasons wearing an Estrellas uniform alongside his father, former St. Louis Cardinal Fernando Tatis Sr., who manages the team. Another former Cardinal and Puerto Rico World Baseball Classic team manager Yadier Molina (recently named LIDOM manager of the year by the Santo Domingo Sportswriters Association), now wears the black and yellow cap of Águilas. That star power combined with New Era’s brand recognition as the official cap of the grandes ligas is a powerful combination for fans when considering a purchase.

“What people like most are the New Era caps,” Mateo said. “They’ve got más flow.”

Licey and Escogido have their hats manufactured by a Dominican company called 4Fans, and with Licey winning consecutive championships and Escogido managed by Albert Pujols that local brand is getting a boost.

“It could be 4Fans, it could be another company, (LIDOM) fans are still going to get it,” Mateo said. “There was a time when every team (in LIDOM) used New Era for their caps. But just like here in the United States, sometimes sports teams (in the Dominican Republic) change the companies that make their uniforms. Escogido and Licey haven’t used New Era for years, but I feel they’ll return to New Era soon.”

Keeping up with the business logistics of LIDOM’s cap manufacturing can be a complicated dance at times. Sometimes Mateo has ordered directly from LIDOM. Other times New Era. 4Fans being in the mix means he’ll always have to make more than one call if he wants every LIDOM cap in stock at Peligro Sports.

Ordering LIDOM jerseys is similarly complex, according to Mateo. Mexican company Arrieta makes the jerseys for Estrellas, Águilas and Gigantes. Escogido’s jerseys are manufactured by Wilson. Licey has jerseys manufactured by Wilson and Arrieta. Mateo hasn’t bothered trying to sell Toros jerseys because the team doesn’t have much of a following in New York, but you can get Toros caps at Peligro.

The most popular LIDOM jerseys at Peligro Sports? Águilas. Which Mateo attributes to the team’s history of success and many of Washington Heights’ Dominican residents hailing from El Cibao, where Águilas fandom is commonplace.

One jersey that could soon be a best seller for Peligro is that of Juan Soto — but not just his New York Mets jersey. Soto has reportedly asked the Mets if he could play for Licey in the future. If that happens, Mateo could see many of the Soto fans who bought Yankee caps at Peligro Sports when Soto was traded to the Bronx returning for Soto Licey jerseys, given his popularity in New York’s Dominican community. Mateo said many of the Soto fans who bought Yankee caps have already returned to purchase Mets caps.

Peligro Sports allows its customers to personalize purchased jerseys with names and numbers on the back, although Mateo points out that no LIDOM team puts player last names on the back of its jerseys (that’s prime real estate for advertising). If a customer wanted a Licey jersey with “Soto” on the back they could request it for as simple a reason as their own last name being Soto. But Mateo is holding off on proactively making any Juan Soto merchandise for now.

“Supposedly, Soto might play five or 10 games (for Licey),” Mateo said. “Out of respect I won’t make a Soto jersey until a deal is done. Not all money is welcome money. But from the moment I can (legally), I will. I don’t want to break the good relationships I’ve built with LIDOM. (A Soto Licey jersey) would be a great impact for the league and for me as a businessman. Soto is in his moment right now. Many (superstar) Dominican players play in LIDOM when their careers are coming to an end. It would be incredible if it could happen.”

¡Una familia de GANADORES… Una familia de CAMPEONES! @JuanSoto25_ 💙 #LiceyFamily 👑 pic.twitter.com/dNBOq8fOKK
— Tigres del Licey (@TigresdelLicey) January 8, 2025

Mateo has been in Washington Heights for over three decades and selling LIDOM merchandise more than half of that time. From the titans to the contenders and pretenders, he says LIDOM continues to be good business for him because of the passion he believes the Dominican Republic will always have for baseball and the pride those baseball fans share in their nation.

“It’s a way to identify where you’re from,” Mateo said. “Latinos, even more so the youth, love to say ‘I’m Dominican,’ ‘I’m Puerto Rican.’ Each person wants to represent their country. The Dominican league is so strong in popularity, the people feel it in their soul. People want to show where they’re from and where their allegiances are.”

The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.

(All photos: David Betancourt)