SUGAR

If you are a fan of baseball this is definitely a must see movie. It follows baseball prospect Miguel “Sugar” Santos from the everyday rigors of a baseball training academy in the Dominican Republic to his journey in the United States.

As a former minor league baseball employee, this movie opened my eyes even more to how hard Spanish speaking and non-U.S. born baseball players struggle during their first U.S. experience. This movie also had me reminiscing about finding housing for Latino players and getting them rides to the ballpark. Those were interesting memories.

It is truly amazing how hard it is for a Dominican baseball player to make it through the baseball training and then to a Minor League roster let along making it all the way to the Major League level. The film really captures that effort and sacrifice.

Much of the movie is in subtitles so be prepared to read the bottom of the screen during 65% of the movie. But, by no means, does that take away from the film. In fact, in some ways having the subtitles makes you appreciate the film even more.

From a purely baseball perspective the ending of the movie was kind of frustrating. However, when taking the complete movie into account it makes a lot of sense.

Unfortunately the film got a limited release so if you didn’t see it in the theater (or are now just hearing about it) just rent it or get it on Netflix.