Three things in three paragraphs:

1. The personal infrastructure was out of control and Alderson’s there to fix that. As far as the oft-sleazy Buscones, I’m not sure what he can do about them
2. Fingerprinting? I’m no ACLU watchdog, but won’t there be some concern?  Or, is it one of those: “If you want to be in our club, you play by our rules” thing?
3. I’m encouraged by the  pride and embarrassment admitted by the DR citizens. Hopefully the dirty underbelly will be cleaned up.

Alderson’s closing comment is spot on, in terms of how to approach this, being a visitor in their backyard:

“We have to be good corporate citizens here.”

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From an article released almost a year ago, here’s the tally of identity fraud coming out of the DR:

Identity fraud among players signed in the Dominican Republic has declined in recent years: 

Time frame	Total players who signed	Players who committed fraud	Percent of fraud
Nov. 2003-Dec. 2004	348	151	43%
2004-05	377	135	36%
2005-06	505	145	29%
2006-07	574	153	27%
2007-08	561	143	25%

From that same article, here’s how the Buscones are described:

At the root of the problem are the largely unregulated buscones, Spanish for “seekers,” some of whom have been accused of regularly misrepresenting players’ ages, furnishing them with steroids and scamming to extract large portions of their signing bonuses, sometimes in conjunction with major league team employees.

With an annual gross domestic product of about $9,000 per capita, the Dominican lacks the infrastructure — school-affiliated leagues, salaried coaches, equipment, etc. — to develop baseball talent at the youth level.

Buscones fill that void, providing instruction and sometimes food and lodging to promising young players in exchange for a percentage of their signing bonuses — typically around 30%, according to buscones and players in the Dominican — if they sign a pro contract.

Sleazy, sleazy stuff.  Here’s to hoping Alderson can help fix this mess.