Baseball's Dominican Debt Trap

Major League Baseball’s informal pipeline in the Dominican Republic combines early, off‑book 'handshake' contracts with a local ecosystem of trainers and high‑interest lenders, producing large promised bonuses that are often captured by intermediaries and debt schemes before players turn 16. The practice circumvents MLB age rules, leaves families indebted, and substitutes private governance for enforceable labor protections. — This reframes sports recruiting as an international labor‑and‑credit policy problem with implications for child protection, immigration policy, and corporate accountability.