A Manufacturer’s Debt to Haiti (Rawlings Baseballs BARF Alert)

New York Times ^ | February 3, 2010 | Richard Sandomir

[C19fan]

Nearly 20 years ago, Rawlings Sporting Goods closed its baseball assembly plant in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and completed a move to its other factory in Costa Rica. Rawlings cited Haiti’s political instability for idling about 1,000 workers.

Now, almost a month after the earthquake that caused innumerable deaths and widespread suffering and devastation, does Rawlings have a duty to send some business back to Haiti?

Major League Baseball should prod Rawlings, its official baseball supplier since 1977, to consider such a move as one way to try to help Haiti. But Bud Selig & Company can no more demand that Rawlings heads back to Haiti than the company can tell M.L.B. whom to sell the Texas Rangers to.

[C19fan]

Rawlings has ZERO obligation. It tried to make it a go in Haiti but the thugs that run the country and the streets drove them out. The author seems to have zero concerns for the workers in Costs Rica who would lose their jobs; a country that is a relative island of peace and tranquility in that part of the world.

[pfflier]

does Rawlings have a duty to send some business back to Haiti

No

[GeronL]

None whatsoever

[GeronL]

sandor@nytimes.com

Tell him No.

[HamiltonJay]

IF anything this mess proves Rawlings point. To believe they should be FORCED to go back into that chaos is insanity, but that is what progressivism is, a mental disorder.

[RightOnline]

sigh..............drivel from the NY Slimes. Color me shocked. Ahem.

[theDentist]

Dear Mr Sodomy, You feel bad about it? Send your next 6 months paychecks to Haiti. Leave the rest of us alone.

[Onelifetogive]

Maybe the New York Times should be required to perform its publishing or printing in Haiti...

[sticker]

“... the workers in Costs Rica who would lose their jobs; a country that is a relative island of peace and tranquility in that part of the world.”

Of course a writer for the new york slimes isn't going to care about a non-communist country's workers

[edcoil]

Has the reason Rawlings left been corrected?

[ReagansShinyHair]

Duty? The White Man’s Burden?

[dfwgator]

Maybe their counterparts on Hispaniola should try to teach them a thing about baseball or two.

[jiggyboy]

does Rawlings have a duty to send some business back to Haiti?

Is this guy so woozy from smelling his own farts that he has decided for no reason whatsoever to make it his duty to organize international manufacturing? Later in the article it seems that he got this bug up his ass and just starts calling random people with his inane non sequitur of a question.

[coaltrain]

Why doesn’t the New York Times open up their own baseball factory in Haiti? Or at least set up printing factories to run off the few newspapers they still sell? Then they can use Haitian boat people to ship the papers to the U.S. each morning.

[Dixie Yooper]

The infamous “Haiti Ball” was giving pitchers and catchers fits during it's last year in MLB. It had a mind of it's own as if Voodoo was involved. If I remember right, the stitching was the cause of ball's inability to be thrown with any control.

[Vigilanteman]

. . . does Rawlings have a duty to send some business back to Haiti?

The more logical question would be "Does Haiti have a duty to reform their FUBAR political system which caused Rawlings to leave in the first place?"

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

does Rawlings have a duty to send some business back to Haiti?

Heh, heh, heh--He said "duty!"

[Touch Not the Cat]

.
“Does Rawlings have a duty....”

No. It’s an asinine question.

[VeniVidiVici]

Actually I think the author has more of a responsibility to move to Haiti than does Rawlings.

Rawlings no longer makes any money off of Haiti while this author does.

[Buckeye McFrog]

it’s an interesting fact that all Major League Baseballs are manufactured in Haiti, even though baseball is not played in Haiti. (meanwhile right next door in the Dominican Republic they are absolute baseball fanatics)