SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Enter Eduardo Figueroa's Mexican restaurant in Old San Juan and the first thing you notice are New York Yankees pinstripes, the ones the former 20-game winner wore during his eight-year big league career, encased in glass as if they were pages from the Magna Carta.
And come to think of it, they might as well be. Because while baseball hasn't yet become a museum relic on the island, the sport has suffered from such a decline in popularity in recent years, many young Puerto Ricans now say they prefer basketball, volleyball, video games and even hanging out at the mall to what was their parents' national pastime.
The problem has become so bad that in August owners of the six teams in the venerable Puerto Rican league voted, for the first time, not to play this winter. That left this month's Caribbean Series without a Puerto Rican team for the only time in the series' 59-year history. And if the league doesn't return next year, Puerto Rico could lose its spot in the Caribbean Series permanently.
"Baseball is in a crisis stage in Puerto Rico right now," said Carlos Berroa, a Florida Marlins scout and an instructor at the private Puerto Rican Baseball Academy and High School in Gurabo. "It's embarrassing."
But growing competition from other sports and leisure activities isn't the only thing responsible for baseball's demise in Puerto Rico, birthplace of Hall of Fame members Roberto Clemente and Orlando Cepeda and once the winter proving ground for the likes of Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr. and Wade Boggs. Other contributing factors include:
* Uninspired leadership from the league and team owners, who almost scrapped the 2006 season, deciding to play only a week before opening day. With sponsorships lagging, stadiums have been left to deteriorate, marketing has become all but nonexistent and average attendance slipped to less than 2,000 a game in 2006.
* The cold shoulder most of Puerto Rico's major league stars have given to the winter league. Unlike established players from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Mexico, most top Puerto Ricans now refuse to play at home and have traditionally offered the league little support, which also has helped cripple attendance.
