Yankeetorial: Will MLB finally drain the swamps of its corrupt Latin American plantation system?

To the Yankiverse:

Today comes news that Bud "Bowie" Selig -- our $16.5 million-a-year commissioner, whose most memorable impact on the sport thus far is a ginned-up excuse to watch the All-Star game -- has dispatched someone to clean up the long-standing Latino player development system that recruits, juices, false advertises and pimps young men into baseball.

God speed Sandy Alderman.

The Dominican Republic's baseball plantations move prospects with the efficiency of a Frank Perdue chicken farm. When we read about the $5 million contract given a 16-year-old, it's hard to choke down the sense of corruption that surrounds it. It makes NCAA basketball's recruitment of teens look humane.

Mr. Alderson, at 62, you don't have the 30-years it will take to drain the swamp, but here is one idea that MLB could implement soon.

Ban the signing of international free agents until age 18 or the completion of a legitimate high school level diploma.

Basically, this would put them on equal terms with American players.

In this country, we would never let 16-year-olds be pimped that way. It's crazy. It puts recruiters and agents into famlies when the boys are 12 and 13. For every kid that gets a $5 million contract, how many have their youth obliterated, their education neglected, their families torn apart -- and nothing to show for it?

Mr. Alderman, there are problems in Latin America, just like the ones here. Kids get given steroids. They are encouraged to lie about their ages. (Jose Tabata, at right, once our 17-year-old Yankee superprospect, was soon married to a woman pushing 40. Start with him. Don't judge him. Just get him to tell you his story.) You will never clean it up completely. But you can give it a whack upside the head. Give baseball some moral ground. Do the right thing.

Bud Selig's legacy is on your shoulders. We don't need another Mitchell report.