Dubon’s aim: Boost game in Honduras
Brewers prospect on verge of majors
Mauricio Dubon grew up MIAMI in a baseball family, if not in a baseball hotbed. His father and his older brother played in their hometown of San Pedro Sula, a city in Honduras of more than 700,000 with, by Dubon’s estimate, no real baseball fields and only a couple of softball fields. Dubon loved the game and played it from the time he was 4, playing with and studying the older players in his family and emulating American stars he watched on television such as Derek Jeter and Chipper Jones.
When Dubon was 15, a Christian mission group from California came to the fields in San Pedro Sula to donate equipment. Andy Ritchey, part of the mission, watched Dubon play and invited him to stay with his family in the Sacramento area, where he could pursue his baseball dreams while playing at Capital Christian School alongside Ritchey’s son, Ben.
Dubon spoke little English when he left Honduras, and the transition to living with strangers in California was not easy.
“I cried myself to sleep for two weeks,” he said Sunday before the All-Star Futures Game at Marlins Park. “But I knew it was going to be worth it. I knew it was going to pay off. I always thought, ‘If you want to be somewhere you’ve never been, you have to do something you’ve never done.’ ”
Today, Dubon refers to Ben Ritchey as his brother, the Ritcheys’ older daughters as his sisters and the Ritcheys as his second set of parents. The Ritcheys joined his biological family in the stands Sunday.
“They’re here,” Dubon said excitedly. “Twenty people! Everybody.”
A speedy, slick-fielding infielder, Dubon went on to star at Capital Christian. After his senior season, the Boston Red Sox selected him in the 26th round of the 2013 draft. He spent four seasons in their system, reaching Class AA in 2016, before an offseason trade put him in the Milwaukee Brewers organization. Now 22 and playing for Class AAA Colorado Springs, Dubon is a breath away from becoming the second major leaguer born in Honduras.
Dubon credits both families for his ascent in baseball, and, despite his age, he recognizes a responsibility to help spread the game in his homeland. Every offseason, he returns to Honduras for a month and organizes a game: Dubon and his friends against former Cleveland Indians prospect Mariano Gomez, also of San Pedro Sula, and his friends. Though he doesn’t drink, Dubon buys enough Salva Vida beer for everyone in attendance.
“I organize everything there, so I can bring people and show them how fun it is to be around baseball and to play baseball professionally,” he said. “It’s free. They can go and watch the game, socialize, see how special the game is.
“All the stuff you see here,” Dubon said, pointing to a locker full of gear, “I’ll give it away over there, so they can be appreciative. So someday, these kids want to do the same thing. (In Honduras) we see the big leagues as something, like, out of this world.”
Dubon ripped an opposite-field double in his first at-bat in the Futures Game. A few rows back of third base, a group of 20 people stood and cheered and waved Honduras flags.