Where's Smiley?

[NewsWhore]

It has been a rough off-season for Dominican baseball, which took another hit this week as it was revealed that a top prospect for the Washington Nationals was not who he said he was. In fact, the player in question, Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo (a.k.a. Esmailyn "Smiley" Gonzalez), had changed his identity in order to get signed to a MLB team. There have always been accusations that Dominican players and their handlers alter their birth dates in order to increase their draft prospects, as was the case for Miguel Tejada and Bartolo Colon, but MLB officials say "Smiley" took on a second identity, falsifying documents, birth certificates and even changing his age by four years. Smiley was the Washington National's top prospect and was even compared to Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith when he was originally signed. Gonzalez's current agent Stanley King said early Wednesday morning he was shocked by the revelations. "I hope this is a mistake," King said via telephone. "I was at his house this winter and he answered by his [baseball name]. I will look into this." Smiley had signed with the Nats in 2006 and a US$1.4 million bonus, the largest international signing ever for the Nats. The Nats looked at the signing as a way of establishing a presence in Latin America and a way of competing with the Yankees and Red Sox in the region, but instead ended up opening a can of worms that could potentially increase scrutiny on international signings and create a shakeup in the sometimes corrupt world of amateur baseball in the country.
http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090218... (http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090218&content_id=3843196&vkey=news_was&fext=.jsp&c_id=was)

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