And yesterday, opening day for the Red Sox, represents a kind of religious holiday in this baseball-obsessed town. One of the high priests of the temple is David Ortiz, “Big Papi.” He is one of the greatest home-run hitters in the game and like approximately 10 percent of the players in Major League Baseball he hails from the Dominican Republic. The tiny Caribbean nation has developed a booming export market for baseball talent.

And so in celebration of opening day, GlobalPost began a continuing series titled “Dominican Dreams: El Barrio to the Big Leagues.” It is GroundTruth on the desperate race by teenage talent to make it out of the poverty of the Dominican Republican to win a coveted spot in the baseball academies where the lucky and the talented will be groomed for a lucrative contract in Major League Baseball. Follow the characters in the series — the talented recruit, the hard-ball agent, the corporate brokers for MLB — all through the summer on the chase for the Dominican Dream. The series is written and produced by the very talented documentary team of Casey Beck and Trevor Martin.