Few people on the Navajo Nation knew about Jacoby Ellsbury until a few months ago. But now people on the reservation are closely watching Ellsbury, the first Navajo to play in major league baseball. He's emerged as a star player for the Boston Red Sox, who had one of their best seasons and are now in the playoffs. "It's so hard for anyone from any place at all to make the majors," Dineh Benally, a a youth baseball coach on the reservation, told The Albuquerque Journal. "And baseball isn't a popular Navajo sport. Basketball and rodeo, they're very big for us. What Jacoby has done is almost incomprehensible." Benally tried to recruit Ellsbury for a local baseball program and into the University of New Mexico. But he said Ellsbury had bigger goals -- to get into the majors.
"He had a dream, and he got it," Benally said.
Get the Story:First Navajo in Major League Baseball Has Ties to New Mexico (The Albuquerque Journal 10/17) Relevant Links:
Boston Red Sox - http://redsox.mlb.com Related Stories:
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