By Christina Veiga
cveiga@MiamiHerald.com
Ricky Todd says that reports he isn’t feeding the young athletes in his baseball camp aren’t true.
Todd, the general manager of Gigante Baseball at Homestead’s city-owned baseball stadium, is on the defensive after one player attending the camp complained to Spanish-language TV station Univision that he was kept at the stadium with little food or supervision.
Receipts provided to The Miami Herald on Friday show Gigante spent almost $5,000 on catering for 33 players from March 1-March 15. The food was catered from El Palacio de los Jugos in Homestead.
Todd also emailed receipts on Friday showing food purchases made at Walmart and Publix. The receipts listed hot dogs, sandwich meat, bacon, bagels, bread, fruit, cereal, juices and energy drinks. The majority of the purchases were made in March and April.
“It’s not as if we’re serving bananas and cereal and don’t have invoices,” Todd said Friday.
Homestead police Detective Fernando Morales said on Friday that investigators had concluded the boys were not mistreated.
Todd said the report of young players going hungry came from just one teen who was upset after being cut from Gigante’s program.
The teen, 19-year old Gabriel Rojas, said he wasn’t cut. “I left because I wanted to. When I saw the conditions that we were in, I decided to leave,” Rojas said Friday.
Another player told Spanish-language TV station Telemundo that the players are being fed more after the original report aired last week. Rojas said his old teammates are afraid to speak out.
“They came here with a dream and they don’t want to talk and lose that opportunity,” Rojas said.
Gigante is a Canadian company that recruits and trains young players from Venezuela in exchange for a percentage of the players’ signing bonus and salary, should the player get signed to a professional baseball team.
In November, La Ley Sports, which leases the stadium from the city of Homestead, signed an agreement with Gigante to use a portion of the baseball stadium to run a baseball program. Since February, about 20 aspiring ballplayers in the Gigante program had been living in the stadium’s locker room, which was lined with twin beds. They moved out on Wednesday, when fire inspectors discovered the stadium’s fire alarm and sprinklers didn’t work.
The issue mushroomed after Homestead officials learned on Wednesday the ballplayers were living in the stadium’s locker room.
In an email sent Thursday to city leaders and to Ruiz, City Manager George Gretsas wrote:
“Yesterday, the City received an email from a Homestead citizen alleging mistreatment of baseball players under the age of 18 at the LaLey Sports Complex.
“Upon review, staff found that baseball players, some under 18 years of age, were being housed in the locker room in violation of Miami-Dade County Fire regulations, City of Homestead Zoning Laws, City of Homestead Building Codes and the lease between the City of Homestead and LaLey Sports. In addition, numerous Fire Code violations were reported in the facility by the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department.’’
In addition, the manager wrote that La Ley violated its lease agreement with the city when it rented out the facility to Gigante and did not notify the city.
“The agreement between Gigante Baseball Group and LaLey Sports Complex is a 5 year agreement with a 3 year mutual option,’’ according to the manager’s email. “The terms of the lease between the City of Homestead and La Ley Sports prohibits LaLey Sports from assigning, mortgaging, subleasing, or otherwise encumbering the Property without the prior written consent of the City, except for “short-term license(s) and/or user agreement(s) of portions of the Property, and Sponsorship Agreements (including fields naming rights agreements) for a Permitted Use…”
Ruiz has a different interpretation of that clause, saying the lease allows for “short-term license(s) and/or user agreement(s) without approval from the city.
Gigante’s contract with La Ley is a five-year agreement, effective Nov. 30, 2011, with the option to renew for another three years.
Ruiz on Friday said the city was in default of the lease because of other issues. One of those issues: The city recently over-billed La Ley $22,000 in garbage fees, which Ruiz says is a violation of the lease provision which requires the city to provide utilities at a consistent rate.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/27/2775424/police-kids-were-not-mistreated.html#storylink=cpy
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