Mike Brito, Influential Dodger Scout in Mexico, Dies at 87

Brito’s different signings embrace the present Dodgers starter, Julio Urias, who received 20 video games in 2021; the mercurial outfielder Yasiel Puig, who’s Cuban; pitchers Ismael Valdez, Joakim Soria, Antonio Osuna, Victor Gonzalez and Dennys Reyes; shortstop Juan Castro and the outfielder Karim Garcia. One other of his finds, Bobby Castillo, a transformed third baseman often called Babo, taught Valenzuela find out how to throw a screwball.

“I am not mendacity to you,” Brito advised The Los Angeles Instances in 2011. “Inside every week, Fernando was throwing the screwball nearly as good as Babo.”

“For a lot of, many prospects from Mexico, he was a God,” Jaime Jarrín, a Dodgers’ Spanish-language broadcaster since 1959, advised Baseball America final 12 months. “They liked him as a result of he protected them.”

Mike Brito was born on Aug. 21, 1934, in Cuba and was a catcher who, beginning in 1955, performed three seasons within the decrease tiers of the Washington Senators’ minor league system, then a number of seasons within the Mexican League.

After retiring, he moved to Los Angeles, the place he discovered work as a truck driver and arrange an grownup newbie league that he additionally performed in.

Scouting grew to become his option to keep in baseball. “Due to God, I grew to become a scout within the Mexican League,” he stated in a brief video profile, “The White Hat & Wild Horse: The Scout Who Discovered Puig.” When he was requested by Dodgers Basic Supervisor Al Campanis to work for the group, he recalled pondering, “It is such as you discover a man within the desert and ask him if he needs a glass of water.