Developing players is Alfonso's passion

Carlos Alfonso decided it was time for a promotion following 19 seasons as a coach with the San Francisco Giants. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays thought so, too, and hired Alfonso as the director of international operations in early January.

Since then, Alfonso, a Naples native, has found comfort in his duties with the Devil Rays.

He is in charge of placing scouts and field people in the Domican Republic and Venezuela, as well as finding academies and renting available locations to hold tryouts and eventually play summer league ball.

Even though the last four months have been laborious for Alfonso, the organization still shares an academy with the Los Angeles Dodgers, signed 13 players and found an area to build upon in Valencia, Venezuela.

“It’s been challenging, because everything’s been slow,” says Alfonso, 55, who was in town Saturday along with former major league manager and all-star player Cookie Rojas coaching at the Juan Romero Baseball Camp.

There is an abundance of excitment displayed through the way Alfonso pursues his work with Tampa Bay. At the same time, he readily admits there is just as much satisfaction in coming back to Naples and coaching at youth baseball camps.

Perhaps, it’s because Alfonso understands his roots.

He is far removed from the kid who came to Naples with his family in 1962, two years after migrating from Cuba, and found baseball to be his saving grace. But Alfonso still sees a part of himself and loads of potential in each of the kids at the camp.

Daily News file photo

Carlos Alfonso, who was in town this week to help with the Juan Romero Baseball Camp, is in charge of international scouting for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

“We’ve got to keep their interest up,” Alfonso says while looking out onto the field. “Then somewhere along the line we have to make sure that these guys keep playing baseball ... There’s been so many great high school players come out of here the last 15 years that got into college and then got into pro ball, and before there might’ve been a few here and there.”

Alfonso was one of the few.

He went on to attend the University of South Florida and Florida International University — then to the major leagues, playing only one week with the Houston Astros in 1968.

Alfonso spent the next 19 years as a coach with the Astros’ organization before moving on to San Francisco in 1987.

During his tenure with the Giants, Alfonso says he’ll remember most the 2002 World Series against the Anaheim Angels and the friendship formed with Barry Bonds.

Much of the bonding between the two came through a discussion about family and base running.

Bonds’ knowledge of the game and ability to slow down a pitch is partly what makes him such a powerful hitter, Alfonso says. Meanwhile, Alfonso, who also says he hasn’t been contacted by anyone in the major leagues regarding the steroid investigation, hopes the steroid issue is brushed aside and that Bonds is remembered as one of the best pure hitters of all time.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not. He had power before his scandals were up. He was a line-drive hitter, he didn’t strike out much.”

A lot is owed to the Giants organization, Alfonso says, but the main priority now is helping the Devil Rays experience the same success as San Francisco has over the years.

Or the Florida Marlins, for that matter.

The Devil Rays and Marlins begin a three-game series in interleague play Monday. And while Alfonso thinks Tampa Bay’s new ownership is committed to winning, he says the organization has to establish consistency in winning before a healthy rivalry develops between the two Florida major-league teams.

Despite only playing six games a year, Rojas, who now lives in Miami and serves as a Spanish television announcer for the Marlins, says it would be good for baseball if the Tampa Bay-Florida series was viewed like the Subway Series between the New York Mets and Yankees.

“I think it’s good for both cities,” he says. “You can see fans driving from Tampa into Miami and Miami going over into Tampa. I hope that someday we’ll see both teams win the American League and the National League.”