For those of you who don't know today a Nationals minor leaguer Esmailyn Gonzalez was found to have falsified his age and identity. It turns out his actual name is Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo and he's 23 not 19. Apparently this was not some simple scheme but some elaborate plot involving bribes, falsified hospital and school documents, as well as other family members changing their identities. For more information you can go to http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2009/02/stan_kasten_and_the_player_to.html which has quotes from Nationals president Stan Karsten on the issue.
Now this got me thinking how deep of a problem could this potentially be in baseball? Would it really shock you to hear that foreign players such as Albert Pujols or even our very own Alfredo Aceves were a few years older than they claim to be (I'm not accusing here just using them as examples). Perhaps even A-rod is a few years older than he claims, there goes his young and stupid excuse, ok I kid I kid. In all seriousness, I expect teams will do much more thorough background checks in the future in order to prevent this from happening in the future.
On a lighter note the first spring training game is only 7 days away! Go Yankees!!
