“This is a Dominican thing,” Luis Urueta said. “Don’t get scared.”



We were driving on the wrong side of the highway. Well, technically, we were driving down the dirt shoulder next to the wrong side of the highway, but that didn’t make much of a difference to my sphincter. We needed to go east, but there was no eastbound access from where we sat. So, cars zipping by my passenger window at more than 80 miles an hour, Urueta propelled his SUV down the opposite shoulder, veered through a turnaround that also was meant to be used in the opposite direction and reoriented us on the correct side of the road to La Romana. We had a game to catch.



You probably haven’t heard of Urueta. Even Diamondbacks fans may not know who he is, and he’s on Arizona’s big-league coaching staff. You won’t see him in the dugout, because his isn’t a dugout position. Unless you come to the field very early or stumble into...