http://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/baseball-republic/Quote:
Soon, Papiro would stage a tryout with the White Sox at Centro Olympico. The improved Marte dazzled. But Starling’s first buscone, Lucas, heard that Papiro was promoting him to Chicago and arrived at the field, enraged that his player had been stolen.
“The White Sox scout offered me $70,000,” Papiro recalls. “And then almost at the same time, Lucas arrived with a gun.”
As Starling watched in shock, Papiro stood his ground with Lucas, telling him that he had squandered his chance with Marte and to leave the boy alone. No shots were fired, but the White Sox scout pulled his offer and hightailed it out of Centro Olympico.
“I was scared, and I was crying,” Marte says, “because that was my opportunity, and I did not know if I would get another one.”
Papiro believed there would be others. Two weeks later, he set up a tryout with the Pirates’ Rene Gayo. Marte had already played for Gayo four times and not been signed, so, to him, the proposition felt hopeless.
“When they saw you,” Papiro told him, “you were not a baseball player. Now, you are a baseball player.”
Gayo had actually liked Marte. But his supervising scout, Josue Herrera, felt that Marte had potential character issues and wasn’t worth the risk. Plus, he was well over 18.
“Everybody was treating him like he's a 50-year-old has-been," Gayo says.
Marte had tried out for Gayo before as a shortstop and did not show much defensively. Luckily, Papiro had been training Marte as an outfielder, too, and when Gayo saw him throw from out there, his eyes opened wide.
“He’s graceful,” Gayo says. “He was just such a great athlete. He did everything so easy. When he ran, he ran beautiful.”
Gayo told Herrera that he was going to sign Marte. Gayo recalls Herrera (who is now a buscone) saying, “I don’t want my name on this guy.” Gayo was fine with taking the credit for Marte, offering Papiro $85,000 on the spot. Of course, Papiro took it.
I doubt Marte would become the player he is today under Sox development but what shit luck.