The point is they provide hundreds of jobs and necessary services. Many of the employees are family -- and those who aren't are made to feel as if they are.
"We hope God continues blessing us so we can keep supporting our family. And also the people that work for us," Guerrero says.
And while that may not strictly classify as charity, Guerrero gives in other ways too, having donated to a fund to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina -- a thank you, he and other Dominican players said, for U.S. aid to victims of past hurricanes in their country. Guerrero also gives more than 10,000 Angels tickets to local youth groups each season and sponsors so many softball and baseball teams everyone has lost count.
But if Guerrero keeps his Bible close, he keeps his family closer. The 31-year-old, who is unmarried, brings as many as two dozen relatives, including his mother and his six children, to live with him in his gated Anaheim Hills home each summer.
"You're always happy when you're playing well and your family is with you," says Guerrero who, despite being slowed by injury, played quite well this season, leading the AL West champions in home runs (27), RBIs (125), slugging percentage (.547) and on-base percentage (.403) and batted .324, seventh-best in the American League. "When you're finishing playing, even if you went 0 for 4, when you get to the house you're not thinking about going 0 for 4. You go home and relax with your family."
Not that that happens very often -- the 0 for 4 part, that is.
"He's probably the best hitter in baseball right now," Washburn says. "It's amazing the kind of things he can do at the plate. You try to remind yourself he is that one-in-a-million type of player. You shake your head, laugh about it and move on, try to get the next guy out. There's no way to pitch him."
Mariners pitcher Miguel Batista agrees.
"When he guesses the right pitch, you can bounce it and he's going to hit it," he says. "If you throw it too high, he's going to hit it."
Like his humility, that too is a product of Guerrero's upbringing. As a child his work consisted of tending stubborn cattle on his grandfather's farm, something that gave him strong hands. And his play revolved around a game called la placa (license plate), in which the hitter had to keep his bat on the placa until after the pitcher released the ball. That taught Guerrero how to hit low pitches.
