By TODD JACOBSON
PHOTO GALLERY: Click here to view images from the series.
CONSUELO, Dominican Republic--Manny Acta had pulled himself from the sunroof of a rocking SUV, shaken dozens of hands and addressed hundreds of screaming fans in his baseball-crazy hometown with a humble gracias .
He thought he finally had made sense of an all-day baseball party that greeted his return to the Dominican Republic when a thunderous shower of fireworks exploded high over his head.
Acta is not one for hoopla, but his hometown threw the Washington Nationals' new manager a bash for the ages Friday. Fans greeted their favorite son with loud cheers upon his arrival at a Santo Domingo airport and continued the fiesta late into the night in Consuelo--a town built on the back of its sugar cane factory but crazy for its baseball.
Hesitant about the celebration and humble by nature, Acta could only accept that things had changed since he left the town in 1986 for a career in professional baseball.
"It's amazing," Acta said. "I always knew that these people were behind me, but I could never imagine the turnout and all the things they've been doing for me.
"It's a lot. It's too much, really."
Consuelo and nearby San Pedro de Macoris have produced dozens of baseball players, so many that Acta often jokes that it's hard to walk 100 feet without seeing a former player or a current baseball star.
Acta's home is a modest, light-blue three-bedroom house--rebuilt after a 1998 hurricane wiped out the house in which Acta grew up--where his parents, Manuel and Blanca, still live year-round.
Acta grew up playing on fields a block from his home. He played in the shadow of current and former big leaguers Alfredo Griffin, Julio Franco and Sammy Sosa (who lived in Consuelo until he was a teenager).
Former National League batting champion Rico Carty was a town hero, like Acta now, and he was in the crowd Friday.
But a manager? For a country that worships baseball, its decision-makers are held in high esteem, and there had only been three Dominican-born big-league managers before Acta. Clearly, this was different.
"There are lots of players," said Acta's youngest sister, Anayma, 23. "It's different to be a manager."
'He's very important'Carty still has the barrel chest and Popeye forearms that earned him the nickname "Beeg Mon" during a 15-year playing career. He's still a celebrity around Consuelo.
But he can remember only a few celebrations like the party that greeted Acta Friday: when Carty won the NL batting title in 1970 and when Griffin was the American League Rookie of the Year in 1979.
"Manny Acta was born and raised here, and he has touched so many lives here. He's very important to this community, as you can tell," Carty said.
Carty motioned with his right hand toward the crowd that had gathered in the center of the town and laughed.
"You bring any other player that belongs to here and you won't see this," Carty said.
Acta, clearly, isn't just any other player.
He left Consuelo in 1986 to sign with the Houston Astros as a minor-league free agent. Even as he strived to make it, first as a player and then as a coach and manager, he never forgot his town.
He sponsored a little league that now fields nine teams from ages 8-16; returned to the island to manage in the Dominican Winter League and teach baseball clinics; and tried to set himself apart as an example for every kid in Consuelo with a dream.
When he was introduced as the Nationals' manager--the fourth major-league manager ever from the Dominican Republic--in a November press conference at the swank downtown D.C. headquarters of the Lerner family, the Nationals' owners, he spoke of his unique opportunity.
He was an immigrant, self-taught in English, who became a United States citizen in 1999, and against all odds, a big-league manager in 2006.
"How appropriate, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic like me comes to America, works hard, keeps his nose clean and gets his chance to manage the capital of the United States' baseball team," Acta said in November. "God bless America. Only here."
He repeated that message Friday, urging each child to pursue his dream.
A thirst to learnActa, the oldest of five children, was always a leader, his mother, Blanca, said through an interpreter, and always striving to learn.
When Acta signed as a free agent with the Astros in 1986, his first purchase wasn't a car or a house. He didn't have the money for that stuff, anyway. So he bought a slim paperback book called "Basic English."
In 800 words, the book promised that he could communicate in the United States. He remembered that Fernandez, the Blue Jays and Cleveland Indians shortstop, had used the book.
"He was always so intelligent and he needed to be studying or learning," Blanca Acta said.
Even when his playing career ended with a sputter in 1991--he was a career .236 hitter, without exceptional speed or power--the learning never stopped.
He quickly reconciled his failed playing career, accepted an assignment to scouting school and eagerly embraced assignments in anonymous minor-league towns dotting the United States.
But even as he bounced from Asheville, N.C., to Burlington, Iowa, to Kissimmee, Fla., he was learning, and his most valuable lessons came sitting next to Tim Tolman.
Tolman let him coach third base some with Asheville, and let him run some games. "We were way down in the South Atlantic League. There was nothing to lose," Tolman said.
So way down the Astros' minor-league ladder, Acta was allowed to manage Asheville's running game at times. Other times, he got to make defensive changes.
And almost every inning, without fail, he peppered Tolman with questions.
"Manny was always looking for the next step," said Tolman, who has joined Acta's Nationals staff as the team's third base coach. "That's the key. There is always something you can learn from."
Acta said it was just his nature, whether it was in baseball or life.
"I have never been afraid to try to find out about baseball, or any type of thing I am interested in, and I am one that always tried to push the Latin players to try to learn the language because it will accelerate the process," Acta said.
"I learned the culture and laws of this country and I think that without my knowledge of the language, I wouldn't have advanced as fast or become who I am today."
A hero's welcomeThe VIP Lounge at Las Americas Airport in Santo Domingo typically opens for the likes of David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez or Alfonso Soriano.
Before Friday, Acta returned often to the Dominican. Each time, he carried his own luggage and cleared customs on his own, walking out of the airport almost anonymously.
This time, however, he was greeted in a bear hug by the island's ministry of sports and whisked past security and customs.
When he reached the airport's exit, hundreds of fans waited, and as the crowd engulfed him--players from the little league team Acta sponsors chanting, "Yeah, Go, Manny Acta,"--a Dominican Republic flag was wrapped around his broad shoulders.
"He's a national hero," said Alberto Medina, a local writer who helped organize the festivities. "He's the first guy coming from this town, from the inside of the island, to be a manager. We have a lot of players but not a lot of mangers. There is so much pride."
Henry Astacio, a 14-year-old left fielder who plays on one of nine little league teams Acta sponsors, had heard only stories of the Consuelo resident before yesterday.
The words "Liga Manny Acta" are scrawled on Astacio's jersey. But he had never seen the man, so he boarded a bus crammed with other teens and youngsters that was headed to the airport. They waited there for more than three hours as Acta's plane was delayed.
When Acta emerged from the airport, Astacio and his friends bounced up and down, chanting and straining for glimpses of the manager.
They reached out for him, some grabbing at his arms and shoulders, others holding cell phone cameras in the air like lighters at a concert to capture a picture of Acta.
"Every time we practice we tell each other, we want to be like Manny Acta," Astacio said through a translator. "He's a player from our town."
The celebration at the airport paled in comparison to what awaited Acta in Consuelo.
Like a presidential candidate, Acta arrived in an SUV, waving through the sun roof as the vehicle inched through a crowd of more than 1,000 fans. The vehicle rocked as the crowd surged and Acta leaned out of the SUV, trying to shake as many hands as he could.
"Manny told me today he knows how I feel when I won the MVP award," said Jose Rijo, a special assistant to Nationals general manager Jim Bowden and the 1990 World Series MVP. "He feels like an MVP."
Acta made his way onto a stage backdropped by a giant Presidente beer sign, and he waited as a parade of dignitaries and friends made their way to the podium.
Acta's sister, Carmen, detailed Acta's career, and Alejandro Williams, a senator from San Pedro de Macoris, brought a proclamation from the Dominican congress honoring Acta.
Town mayor Juan Padilla declared Friday a día festivo y no laborable . The day was to be a holiday, and there would be no work after noon.
There were no complaints.
In the crowd, as the Presidente beers flowed freely and the heavy beat of reggaeton music pounded, Acta's friends remembered him as the same guy who played baseball and basketball in town and always was happy to stop and talk to anyone on the street.
"He's a simple guy, a family man," said Ramon Tolentino, Acta's longtime friend. "Everybody in the streets stops him and says hello to him. It's really his humility."
Tolentino runs Acta's little league program and helped organize the festival, and he tells many stories of Acta.
He led a visitor into his home near Consuelo's central plaza and pulled down a dusty photo from the wall. In it, Acta is dressed in a basketball uniform; this was from Acta's early teenage days, when he played both basketball and football.
"Manny is the pride of our community," Tolentino said. "I think if you look and you see the people that showed up it shows the quality of love we have for him."
Acta, too, saw the sea of people--some sitting on mopeds, others crowded near the front of the stage--as they heard him talk.
Things had clearly changed, but they hadn't changed Acta.
"I am the same guy to them, whether I am the manager of the Nationals or the same guy that was playing basketball or little league baseball here," Acta said. "Everything I do is to make sure that I make them proud and do the right thing."
To reach TODD JACOBSON:
Email: tjacobson@freelancestar.com