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On Assignment: Coaching Goes ‘Far beyond Football’ for Green

Coaching goes ‘far beyond football’ for green.

By Matt Burglund

Donta Green won’t rest. How could he when there is so much to do?

Donta Green and the Westinghouse Bulldogs in November 2022 (Brian Henry)

He is surrounded by people and things that need his attention. Underfunded schools. People surviving in neighborhoods that are dying. Drugs and crime. He looks around and knows what he has to do. He helps, he guides, he pushes, and he pulls. His days start early. They end late.

A 2010 IUP graduate, Green by day is the executive director of the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh. Almost every other waking minute, he’s the football coach at the high school he attended, Westinghouse Academy. The two jobs are about a mile and a half apart––the institute in Homewood South and the high school in Homewood West––each in neighborhoods that are among Pittsburgh’s poorest.

“My [players] come home to a neighborhood that blight has taken over,” he said. “I have moms calling me, asking if I know anybody that has some food stamps, because they have run out of food. I have kids who don’t have a ride home from school, and they’re afraid to walk, because it’s too dangerous. Some of them wear the same clothes all week.”

Green takes their calls. He finds ways to help. He believes it’s why God put him on this earth.

“There is not a better human being on the face of the earth than Donta Green,” said IUP football assistant coach Mike Campolo ’96, who recruited Green and now counts him as one of his closest friends. “Nobody is more giving than Donta. Nobody makes time for people more than Donta. He is the definition of someone who always gives and never takes.”

Green is a devout Christian, a devoted husband, a loving father, a loyal friend, a community activist, and an inspiring motivator. That’s a long way from where he started his life’s journey.

“The hours that we put in outside football are probably the most important.”

He came from Larimer, another poverty-stricken Pittsburgh neighborhood where dreams were for other people. But after graduating from IUP, he returned to the city and now lifts up the people and places around him. He doesn’t have to think long about how his life would have turned out if he’d never made it to IUP.

“I would have ended up in jail––or dead,” he said. “If IUP didn’t take a chance on me, I probably would have ended up coming home and selling drugs. That usually ends with you being shot and killed or put in jail.”

At Westinghouse, the on-field stuff comes easy for Green, but the off-field demands are difficult. His players need him to be a father figure, a career advisor, a college connection, and a resource they can rely on for a meal or a ride home after practice. He pushes them to be better players, better students, and better citizens.

“I tell my coaches all the time that we are social workers first, and we just happen to know a little bit about football,” Green said earnestly. “I feel like God has placed me here for an assignment. I think the assignment is to do whatever I need to do to support those kids and to make sure that they’re safe and taken care of and that they’re getting the high school experience that they deserve. It’s far beyond football. The hours that we put in outside football are probably the most important.”

The Bulldogs have gone 52-8 since Green became the head coach in 2019, they’ve won four Pittsburgh City League titles, and they’ve advanced to the state championship game the past two years. The statistic he’s proudest of is the number of players he has helped get into college. As of February, it’s 29.

“The players love him, and he loves them just as much, if not more,” said the former Tonia Charles ’09, Green’s wife of 10 years.

Understanding Their World

Donta Green at his day job, with students and staff members at the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh (Emily Jaros Smith ’03, M’05)

Everyone knew Chance Battle was a talented player, but his focus in the classroom didn’t match his focus on the field. In 10th grade, he was academically ineligible to play for the Bulldogs.

Donta and Tonia Green got involved, and while Battle showed improvement, in 11th grade he was again sidelined because of academics. But the coach and his wife worked extra hours to help him catch up. And just before the team was to begin preseason camp his senior year, Battle learned he was eligible to play. He earned All-City League honors and is now a starter at IUP.

“Coach Green is an extremely important person in my life, and he’s that way for all the guys,” Battle said. “He never gave up on me.”

Green understands the world in which his players grow up. The son of mostly absent parents, he was raised in Larimer by Antoinette Hunter, a double-transplant patient who lived with her elderly parents. Initially, she was Green’s babysitter, but eventually, the days at her house turned to nights at her house, and although she didn’t legally adopt him, he called her his mom.

Conditions were rough. Until he got his first bed when he was a teenager, Green slept in a recliner. A couple times a year, the gas was shut off, because the bill went unpaid. Green didn’t use a shower until he was in college (he had taken only baths, and those were sometimes in water heated in the microwave, because the gas was turned off). When he did take a bath, first he had to place a garbage can on top of the refrigerator directly below, because the tub drain leaked, and there wasn’t money to fix it.

But Green felt loved. He and Hunter cared for one another. By the time he was in kindergarten, he was able to identify her pills and open their packaging to give her the medicine she needed following her lung and kidney transplants. He learned from those experiences that a house does not make a home. And a home is what he tries to create every day for his players at Westinghouse and students at the institute.

“The thing I love about Donta is that he isn’t loved because he is soft,” Campolo said. “He is demanding, but he is consistent, and he provides structure. The kids respond to that.”

Green remembers a time when a tree fell and crashed through Hunter’s bathroom window. The solution, because there was no other available, was to put plywood over the hole. Years later, while Green was at IUP, Hunter lost the house. He was still calling her mom when she died in 2017, leaving a hole in Green’s heart that, like that bathroom window, can’t be repaired. The house now sits abandoned, and the window is still boarded up. Sometimes Green drives by, just as a reminder of how far he’s come.

A Winding Path to IUP

In high school, Green was not a good student: he left Westinghouse with a 1.6 grade point average, but he excelled on the football field.

Despite IUP and many other colleges offering him opportunities to play, he did not have the grades to get into those schools. But, as he would do for Battle more than a decade later, Green found someone who would push him. Taunya Tinsley, who at the time worked at Westinghouse as a student advocate, implored Green to find a way to get to college.

“My job with Donta was to nourish the seed and make sure he saw what was possible,” Tinsley said. “I told him not to look at the here and now, but to look at what could be.”

“If nobody recognized him for what he does, he'd still do it.”

Green eventually made his way to Bethany College, a tiny, private Division III school in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. Bethany was only 50 miles from Pittsburgh, but to Green, it felt like a million miles. He finished the year with good grades and, because Division III schools do not offer athletic scholarships, with some debt. He came home for the summer and decided he was not going back.

Green got in touch with Campolo, who had visited him at Westinghouse the previous year. A couple weeks before the season began, he came to IUP and learned about the football program and its winning tradition. Thanks to his one year at Bethany, this time he had the grades to get in.

In three seasons, Green played 28 games at linebacker and was named all-conference after his senior season. He graduated with a bachelor’s in criminology, the first member of his family to earn a degree.

“When I look back at it,” he said, “God was telling me that IUP is where I was supposed to be.”

Committed to Helping

The Trade Institute of Pittsburgh is a nonprofit agency operating out of a reconditioned brick warehouse. 

Many of the institute’s students have drugs and/or incarcerations in their backgrounds, which make it hard to find consistent work. The institute provides them with soft skills, such as résumé writing and interviewing, plus trade skills, like masonry and carpentry, so they can get work that will give them a better future. In 2021, 45 students graduated from the institute and landed decent-paying jobs. In 2022, that number rose to 77. 

“I tell people all the time that these students are just older versions of the kids I have at Westinghouse,” Green said. “I feel like I am in a unique space, because I can be on the preventive side of things for those kids. If I give them the support and exposure they need, they won’t end up having to utilize a program like [the institute].”

Green has been lauded for his success in the boardroom and on the football field. In 2019, after the Bulldogs won their first City League title in more than two decades, Pittsburgh Steelers star Cameron Heyward came to the team banquet and gave Green two tickets to the Super Bowl. In 2022, Pittsburgh Magazine chose him for its 40 under 40 awards, and KDKA selected him as one of its five Hometown Heroes. He was also a recipient of the FBI Community Leadership Award, and after the past two football seasons, he has been named the Pennsylvania Football Writers’ Coach of the Year.

But awards aren’t his motivation. “If nobody recognized him for what he does,” Tonia said, “he’d still do it.”

After being best friends since they were 13, Donta and Tonia started dating a couple years after they graduated from IUP. Married since 2014, they have a daughter, Dru, and a son, Troy, and their strong foundation is built on love, compassion, and a we, not me, philosophy guided by their spirituality. When Westinghouse hired Donta, in effect it also hired Tonia, who spends her day as program director for the Center of Urban Education at the University of Pittsburgh.

“I think the beauty of our union is that we both are committed to helping,” she said. “We understand the call. We help people when they need help. If people trust my husband enough to call for help, there’s merit to that.”

It’s a life to be proud of, but Donta won’t say that in so many words.

“Am I proud of myself?” he asks, repeating the question. “That would be a bold statement.”

Tinsley, who 20 years ago pushed Green to make something positive out of his circumstances,  will be so bold.

“Oh, my God, I am so proud of him,” she said. “I love what he does and who he has become.”

Where He Needs to Be

Green has served as Westinghouse’s head football coach for five seasons. (Brian Henry)

In a video, Green reads a letter from Dick’s Sporting Goods as he is surrounded by his players. He chokes up for a second and bows his head. He then reads the part about the Westinghouse football program being chosen for Dick’s 75for75 program, a distinction that comes with a check for $75,000, to fund a new weight room for the Bulldogs.

What anyone watching the video on YouTube probably doesn’t know is that, a few days before it was filmed in January 2023, Green was all but gone from Westinghouse. He had been offered a lucrative deal to take over the program at Woodland Hills High School in the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh, and in his mind, he was “90 percent gone.”

The school had offered a dramatic salary increase for Green and all his assistants, and it was allowing him to hire eight of them, three more than he had with the Bulldogs. The school had better facilities and a higher profile than Westinghouse. It was an opportunity to move up the coaching ladder, and Green felt he was ready. Earlier that month, he sat on the bed with Tonia, and they talked it over. He mentioned the increase in salary, the better hours, the better facilities, the better job.

“In my mind, I was going through my first team speech,” Donta said. “And then she said, ‘Is that what we got into this for?’ It was like a punch in the stomach.”

He knew what she meant. There was more to do at Westinghouse.

“I was praying about it,” he said. “I said to my wife, ‘I’m not hearing anything.’ And she said, ‘Well, then you already know what to do. If God isn’t giving you the green light, he’s telling you to sit still.’”

Turning down the Woodland Hills job was a difficult phone call to make. But not long after, he got the letter from Dick’s. Rather than giving him a directive, maybe that was God’s way of answering Green’s prayer. A few weeks later, he was in New York City, a guest on ABC’s Good Morning America being interviewed about the 75for75 program.

For those hearing the story of the Bulldogs, their coach, and their community, it’s clear Donta Green is where he needs to be. All he ever wanted was a home, and he has found it. So, is he proud of himself? There’s no time for that kind of talk.

“Part of my growth as a coach,” Green said, “is being able to sit back and reflect on some of the things that I’ve done. But proud of myself? I can’t say that, because there are still kids who don’t make it in our program. There are still kids who are making bad decisions. There are still kids who just aren’t getting it academically yet. There’s just so much more work to do.”

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'A Dangerous Assignment:' Meet a journalist covering corruption in Venezuela

Jeremy Siegel: This is GBH's Morning Edition. In 2016, Venezuela was in economic turmoil. President Nicolás Maduro had recently taken office after the death of Hugo Chávez, and amid a mounting crisis, his government announced a new initiative billed as providing high-quality and essential food to people at risk of starvation. But a new documentary produced by Frontline sheds light on a shadowy corruption scandal spanning from Venezuela to the United States, revealing that this program in Venezuela was not at all what the government claimed it would be, and how the reporters covering it became targets of Maduro. Joining me now is journalist Roberto Deniz of the Venezuelan independent news site Armando.Info. He's the subject of the new film called "A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro's Venezuela." Roberto, good morning. Thanks for joining us.

Roberto Deniz: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Siegel: So take me back to 2016.

Deniz: Venezuela was leaving a tremendous economic and social crisis, and the government at that moment decided to create a kind of social program to help poor people in Venezuela and to provide food for people in Venezuela. But the problem that we have uncovered with our investigation that now is in our documentary is that this was not a social aid from the Venezuelan government to the people. The real thing behind all of this was a business, a business belonging to a Colombian entrepreneur very close to Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president. And not only that, also the main problem that was behind the social program was that they decided to import, to buy food in different countries, especially in Mexico, and send those products to Venezuela. But it was very poor quality food for the poor people in Venezuela.

Siegel: This program was billed as providing high-quality food, but it was not high-quality food; and it was benefiting people living in other countries. Tell me more about what you learned in your reporting and your investigation.

Deniz: We saw that the Venezuelan government decided to send money to different entrepreneurs very close to the Venezuelan government. But these entrepreneurs, like Alex Saab, that maybe was the main entrepreneur behind the program, they bought food that was not the quality that they said. Even worse: We demonstrate that in the case of the powdered milk that we were selling in these boxes to the poor people in Venezuela. We saw that it was a very, very bad quality product because the product was very high in carbohydrates, very high in salt, but very low in calcium and very low in protein.

Siegel: This film, "A Dangerous Assignment," doesn't just illustrate your reporting surrounding the scandal, but also tracks the story of how you and your colleagues were attacked by Maduro's government as a result of your reporting. What was your experience in the aftermath of your investigation?

Deniz: I started to investigate this case and all of the story in 2016, and just a year after it, at the end of 2017, I was sued this Colombian guy, beef entrepreneur, that was benefiting off this social program of Nicolas Maduro. And in 2018, I had to flee Venezuela, I had to get out of Venezuela. And I continued the investigation, living abroad, living in Bogotá, in Colombia. And right now I can't go back to Venezuela because of this investigation, this and other investigations related to our job in Armando.info. And so as you said, this is the cost, this is the risk that we have to face when we decide to do this kind of job in a country like Venezuela right now.

Siegel: Do you have any confidence that things will change in your country and you'll ever be able to go back home?

Deniz: I hope that Venezuela can change, and Venezuela maybe, you know, can fix all the problem that they have. If that happens, I hope to come back in Venezuela. But right now, I'm not sure that that is going to happen.

Siegel: Roberto Deniz is a reporter for the Venezuelan independent news site Armando.Info. He's featured in the new FRONTLINE documentary, "A Dangerous Assignment," which airs tonight on GBH. This is GBH News.

In 2016, Venezuela was in economic turmoil.

President Nicolás Maduro had recently taken office after the death of Hugo Chávez, and amid a mounting crisis, his government announced a new initiative billed as providing high-quality and essential food to people at risk of starvation.

A new documentary produced by FRONTLINE “A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro's Venezuela,” sheds light on a shadowy corruption scandal spanning from Venezuela to the United States, revealing that this program in Venezuela was not at all what the government claimed it would be, and how the reporters covering it became targets of Maduro.

“Venezuela was leaving a tremendous economic and social crisis, and the government at that moment decided to create a kind of social program to help poor people in Venezuela and to provide food for people in Venezuela,” journalist Roberto Deniz of the Venezuelan independent news site Armando.Info, told GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Jeremy Siegel. “But the problem that we have uncovered with our investigation that now is in our documentary is that this was not a social aid from the Venezuelan government to the people.”

The program, Deniz said, was a way to funnel business to entrepreneurs close to the president. And the food was often of poor quality and low nutritional value, he said.

“We saw that the Venezuelan government decided to send money to different entrepreneurs very close to the Venezuelan government,” he said, like entrepreneurs Alex Saab. “Even worse: We demonstrate that in the case of the powdered milk that we were selling in these boxes to the poor people in Venezuela. We saw that it was a very, very bad quality product because the product was very high in carbohydrates, very high in salt, but very low in calcium and very low in protein.”

Deniz himself had to face investigations and ultimately fled Venezuela because of backlash from the powerful people he reported on, he said.

“In 2018, I had to flee Venezuela,” he said. “And I continued the investigation, living abroad, living in Bogota, in Colombia. … And so as you said, this is the cost, this is the risk that we have to face when we decide to do this kind of job in a country like Venezuela right now.”

He hopes to one day be able to return.

“I hope that Venezuela can change,” he said. “If that happens, I hope to come back in Venezuela. But right now, I'm not sure that that is going to happen.”

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‘A Dangerous Assignment’ Director and Reporter Discuss the Risks in Investigating the Powerful in Maduro’s Venezuela

A still from FRONTLINE and Armando.info's documentary "A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro's Venezuela."

The investigation at the heart of FRONTLINE’s new documentary A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela unfolded as Venezuelan journalist Roberto Deniz started looking into complaints about the poor quality of food distributed by a government program.

Venezuela was in the throes of economic collapse in 2016. The value of the country’s oil had fallen, leading to a deficit, and Venezuelans faced high inflation and food shortages. President Nicolás Maduro responded by launching a food program called the Local Committees for Supply and Production (Comité Locales de Abastecimiento y Producción or CLAP).

As Deniz and the Venezuelan independent news site Armando.info where he worked looked into the program, they would help uncover a corruption scheme and the figure at the heart of the scandal: Alex Saab. The documentary, made in collaboration with Armando.info, was directed by Juan Ravell, produced by Jeff Arak and reported by Deniz — who is now living and working in exile.

Deniz and Ravell spoke with FRONTLINE about the risks of reporting on Venezuela, tracing a corruption scandal that reached into the Venezuelan government and spanned continents, and the price that journalists pay for investigating the powerful in Maduro’s government.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Some of the responses have been translated from Spanish.

Can you both take me back to how this whole investigation started?

Deniz: This has been a long story for us — “us” being Armando.info, but also for me, as a journalist. My investigation about Alex Saab started in 2016. That was the moment in which I decided to start investigating what was happening behind the CLAP program. But in 2015, the name Alex Saab came up in an investigation about a contract that he got to build buildings for poor people in Venezuela. The moment when I realized that Alex Saab was also behind the CLAP food program, it was a big signal: This is not a simple contractor of the Venezuelan government. He’s a man who is more powerful than we could imagine.

Ravell: I wasn’t there from the beginning, but I did start collaborating with Armando.info around 2019. They were doing short pieces with different styles in their investigation, so I was making shorts for them and little videos. I remember clearly when the Alacran [Scorpion] investigation broke. An investigation by Armando.info found that opposition lawmakers worked secretly to defend some of Alex Saab’s businesses abroad. And I remember listening to the phone call that Roberto had with Venezuelan opposition politician Luis Parra and I was thinking, “This is insane that nobody’s listening to this call and so few people are aware of the job that Roberto is doing.” The way that Roberto behaved — very controlled, pressing but fair — was impressive to me. That’s when I got the initial idea. Then, when Alex Saab was detained in Cape Verde, we were pretty much convinced that this needs to be a documentary.

Alex Saab’s business network was complicated and vast. Juan, how did you decide what aspects of the story to focus on while filming this documentary?

Ravell: Roberto’s investigation led the narrative. We wanted to follow the most important stories Roberto was publishing, and those that had the most impact. The milk investigation is pretty important to Venezuelans and finding out who was behind its import. A chemical analysis requested by Armando.info showed some of the powdered milk in the CLAP boxes was so deficient in calcium and high in sodium that a researcher noted it couldn’t be classified as milk.

We knew Alex Saab before that. There had been some reporting by Armando.info, but when they connect him to the CLAP importing scheme, that’s when this story gets going. So from then on, we’re basically following Roberto through his investigation and his stories. Other journalists were also working on this case like Gerardo Reyes from Univision and Joshua Goodman from The Associated Press.

Roberto, at what point did you realize the scale of Saab’s business network and its connection to so many Venezuelan government projects?

Deniz: Since 2016, when I realized that Alex Saab was behind the CLAP program. For me, it was very clear that Alex Saab was a man that we have to investigate. The idea that he was the man behind this program to provide food to poor people in Venezuela — that Nicolás Maduro gave all this power to these guys — was a very important signal. When I started, I realized that there was a lot of fear to talk about him. Some sources immediately told me, “Well, Roberto, you have to be careful, because this is a powerful man and is very close to Nicolás Maduro.”

Roberto, you say in the film that some of the information about Saab’s dealings was difficult to uncover, and you needed to find alternative sources. Can you share the process you used to vet these sources to make sure that the information that they were providing was legitimate?

Deniz: In a country like Venezuela, there are severe threats and intimidation against the journalists that dare to do this kind of work. Normally, a journalist can access information from public records, and you can access officials and expect some kind of response. But that doesn’t happen in Venezuela. They won’t even want to acknowledge that you have contacted them.

I spoke to many of the sources that I had gathered for many years, whom I thought could have useful information about what was happening with the CLAP program. That was how I started to gain access to information, documents, papers that confirmed and signaled that Alex Saab was behind all this. You have to double-check, check three or even four times, every piece of information.

I also had many off-the-record sources. I think that over time, those sources have seen the determination that I and the team at Armando.info have had regarding this investigation, and that’s the main reason why they have trusted in our rigor and perseverance.

What was the most challenging aspect of telling the story visually?

Ravell: I’d say finding the balance. It’s a lot of documents. It’s a lot of words. It’s a lot of very dry information that we need to present in an interesting way, so I think what we managed to do is just rely on the narrative and try to find the best ways to translate that into a compelling film.

We were present in certain key moments. When Roberto’s house in Venezuela was raided, we had a camera with Roberto and we were able to interview him that night. The day of the prisoner swap — when Saab was returned from Miami to Venezuela — was interesting, because we had a team in Bogotá following Roberto and a team in Miami. So two different teams in two separate cities covering the same thing. It was an interesting experiment. And I think it comes across nicely in the film.

Roberto, you shared how reporting this story has led to you living in exile. How has that affected your ability to tell stories about what’s going on in Venezuela? What kind of challenges do you face now doing the same kind of journalism you used to do from inside the country?

Deniz: Since I had to get out of Venezuela in 2018, the most difficult thing was answering, “How can I do my work now?” It was so difficult. All of my life, since I decided to become a journalist, I was living in Venezuela, working in Venezuela. But ultimately, my exile was a solution for me, because I could keep working.

The most difficult thing, I think, is the personal part, the family. I know that all of these investigations are not easy for my family, all their grief, all the personal costs that I decided to face during all of these years.

People told me, “Wow, Roberto, you are brave,” “You are a strong person.” I am totally convinced that it’s not related to that. It’s related to our duty as journalists, our responsibility as journalists in a country like Venezuela. People don’t have the opportunity to know what is really happening in the country. I think that has pushed me to continue on in this investigation.

Many times I have thought that this is the moment to end the investigation. I cannot continue anymore. But I have to continue on what we have tried to do in Armando.info.

Can you both speak about the government’s reaction to this journalism, and what it says about press freedoms in Venezuela? What impact is the current atmosphere having on reporters still working inside Venezuela?

Ravell: It’s pretty clear from NGOs that research freedom of expression that investigative journalism and free, independent journalism is at risk in Venezuela. If you publish something and you get sued for defamation, that could end up getting you criminal charges and that can put you in jail. What Armando.info decided to do is just go in and report on hard things, subjects like corruption, and report on people who are very connected to the highest reaches of the Venezuelan government. By doing that, the choice they had to make was to leave the country. One of the few ways you can report on Venezuela is by going into exile. Still, in exile, there are risks, as you can see in the film. Roberto’s house in Venezuela was raided right before Alex Saab was extradited. So he’s in exile, and he’s still persecuted.

Deniz: I have been in exile since 2018, and nowadays I don’t feel that I am safe living abroad. I think that shows how powerful the message of an autocratic government is when they decide to oppose the work of independent journalists. If you see all the stories related to the Alex Saab case, the first legal action that I faced was in 2017 when he decided to sue me. I could face jail if I stayed in Venezuela. I’m totally sure about that. But then in 2021, I got a new legal action against me. I think that is a clear message that even if you get out of Venezuela, but you continue with your work, you are going to face all of the power of the Venezuelan government. It’s so sad for us as journalists.

Shortly before the premiere of this film, the Venezuelan government began responding to the documentary. Can you give us your take on their response?

Deniz: The attorney general of Venezuela accused us — Ewald Scharfenberg, editor and founder of Armando.info, and me, as a reporter — of supposedly being part of and benefiting from a “corruption scheme” related to Venezuela’s ex-oil minister, Tarek El Aissami, who was incarcerated some weeks ago and who’s been questioned for more than a year within a corruption investigation in PDVSA, the Venezuelan state-owned oil company.

It’s not a coincidence that this is happening right after we released the documentary’s trailer. For me, it’s more than evident that this accusation is total nonsense, but that doesn’t make it less serious, because this is a criminalization of the journalism that we have been doing in Armando.info. Sometimes I think that if you compare the work of Armando.info with all the power of the Venezuelan government, we’re like a dwarf fighting a giant, a tiny particle against a huge government, but that only shows you the authoritarian nature of this regime. They won’t tolerate, they won’t accept that some people persist and keep investigating.

Watch the full documentary A Dangerous Assignment: Uncovering Corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela :

Max Maldonado , Tow Journalism Fellow, FRONTLINE/Newmark Journalism School Fellowships , FRONTLINE

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Yankees tip hand on Jasson Dominguez’s future a day after start of rehab assignment

• Updated: May. 16, 2024, 1:22 a.m. |
• Published: May. 15, 2024, 6:55 p.m.

Yankees outfielder Jasson Dominguez began a rehab assignment with Low A Tampa on Tuesday night. Photo courtesy Mark LoMoglio | Tampa Tarpons

• Randy Miller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

MINNEAPOLIS — The Yankees already know what they’ll do with No. 1 prospect J asson Dominguez once his 20-day rehab assignment is up on June 4.

He’ll be optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and not rejoin the Yankees as a starting center fielder or bench player.

Not right away.

Maybe not even this season.

Dominguez is rusty after undergoing Tommy John surgery last Sept. 20 and then rehabbing with no games for almost eight months.

The Yankees haven’t announced their plans for Dominguez, and they won’t until they have to, but manager Aaron Boone practically did so prior to Wednesday night’s 4-0 win over the Twins .

When Boone was asked if Dominguez needs the equivalent of a full spring training, he responded, “Yeah, a month’s worth of playing and building up.”

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RESTORING THE GLORY

Dominguez played his first rehab game on Tuesday night. Hitting second and DHing for Low A Tampa, the switch-hitter was 1-for-3 with a walk in four plate appearances. He was 1-for-2 facing former Yankees right-hander Domingo German, who started for Bradenton in his season debut a member of hte Pirates organization.

Dominguez, who was given a planned rest day on Wednesday, will only DH for about two weeks and then start playing some center. The Yankees want him playing a bunch of minor-league games in the outfield to get his throwing arm into regular-season playing shape.

That’s one reason why Dominguez will be optioned.

Another is the Yankees are happy with the outfield options that they have on their current 26-man roster – starters Juan Soto in right, Aaron Judge in center, Alex Verdugo in left, fourth outfielder Trent Grisham (even though he’s not hitting a lick) plus super utility man Oswaldo Cabrera and DH Giancarlo Stanton.

On Dominguez, Boone said, “He’s in the first days of spring training games and for the first couple of weeks he’s just going to be DHing. Let’s just get out of his way right now. Get him right and get him playing and get him the regular reps and then we’ll see where we are.

“Hopefully in 10 days, two weeks from now we’re getting him into the outfield and starting to really build him up. And then if we have a decision to make at some point, we’ll obviously make that. But that’s a long ways off.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected] .

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Jasson Dominguez Begins Rehab Assignment

By Steve Adams and Anthony Franco | May 14, 2024 at 6:32pm CDT

Yankees outfielder Jasson Dominguez began a minor league rehab assignment Tuesday, per a team announcement. That effectively presses the start button on a 20-day rehab window before he must either be optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre or reinstated to the MLB roster. He’s starting out in Class-A Tampa, though he’ll very likely move up the ladder over the next couple weeks.

Dominguez underwent Tommy John surgery last summer, so it’s fairly natural that Yankees skipper Aaron Boone indicated over the weekend that the 21-year-old will be limited to DH work in the early stages of rehab. This will be the first game action for Dominguez since early September, when he burst onto the big league scene with a promising .258/.303/.677 batting line in 33 plate appearances. Dominguez homered off notable big leaguers like Justin Verlander and Cristian Javier , ultimately popping four round-trippers in his brief debut before being diagnosed with a ligament tear in his elbow.

Prior to that debut, Dominguez had split the season between Double-A and Triple-A, recording 507 plate appearances at the former level and 37 at the latter. He batted a combined .265/.377/.425 despite being just 20 years old. He was about four years younger than his average opponent in Double-A and more than six years younger than the average Triple-A player.

Had Dominguez been healthy, the Yankees’ offseason could well have looked different. They’d still quite likely have made an aggressive push to land Juan Soto from the Padres, but it’s fair to wonder whether Alex Verdugo would’ve still been a prominent trade target with both Dominguez and Aaron Judge projected to be healthy. It seems likely that would not have been the case.

Now, with Verdugo, Soto and Judge all hitting well and Giancarlo Stanton still providing thump from the DH spot (despite a .283 OBP), it’s not as clear how Dominguez might fit onto the roster. He’d certainly be expected to outproduce the surprisingly anemic .069/.270/.172 line that Trent Grisham has mustered thus far, but that’s come in a sample of only 38 plate appearances. There’s likely some merit to the idea that a longtime starter like Grisham has struggled mightily with the move to such a limited role, but the minimal playing time he’s received is the primary reason why Dominguez likely wouldn’t be considered for such a role.

Even if the Yankees felt Dominguez could outperform that pace (which they surely do), putting a touted 21-year-old in a position to get seven or eight plate appearances per week would be a poor move for his development. Whenever Dominguez is deemed healthy enough to be reinstated from the injured list, the Yankees presumably want him to be ticketed for regular at-bats. The current construction of the big league roster doesn’t look ideal for that setup, though all it would take would be one injury to Verdugo, Judge, Soto or Stanton to open up some more substantial playing time.

Of the current outfielders, only Verdugo seems even remotely plausible as a trade candidate, but he’s produced a respectable .243/.329/.397 batting line (111 wRC+) while drawing more walks (11.4%) than strikeouts (10.8%). There’d be ample risk (to put it mildly) in moving a steady veteran enjoying that type of performance to free up playing time for a 21-year-old with eight games of big league experience, regardless of his prospect status. There’s been some speculation about a potential Verdugo trade among fans and pundits alike, but such a scenario seems decidedly unlikely.

Barring an injury in the big league outfield, an eventual minor league assignment for Dominguez feels almost inevitable. He’s still only played in 17 total games above the Double-A level. But with Verdugo and Soto both set to become free agents at season’s end and Grisham playing his way into a non-tender candidate, there’s still a clear path to a prominent role for Dominguez in the long-term — it just might not happen this season.

DJ LeMahieu will follow Dominguez in beginning a minor league rehab stint later this week, tweets Greg Joyce of the New York Post. It’s the second time he’ll start a rehab assignment as he returns from a season-opening injured list stay. LeMahieu joined Double-A Somerset on April 23 but was removed in the first inning after experiencing renewed soreness in his right foot. The veteran infielder was diagnosed with a non-displaced fracture in his foot at the end of Spring Training.

Oswaldo Cabrera and  Jon Berti have split the third base work in LeMahieu’s absence. Cabrera started the season well before a recent slump dropped his batting line to .252/.295/.390 in 132 plate appearances. The speedster Berti is hitting .263 without an extra-base hit and only two walks in 41 trips.

13 Comments

Just in time for the playoff push. Guy’s gonna rake in that lineup. Yanks will look pretty good in the second half of the season with Cole, LeMahieu & Dominguez back in the lineup.

Not to worry…Stanton and/or Judge will be on a lengthy IL stay soon, opening up an active roster spot.

If it’s Stanton, which is a good possibility, he may never regain that starting spot back. Dominguez is immensely talented and hopefully he can continue producing at the rate he was.

That’s the news Yankee fans were all waiting for!

Hoping that they play “Indian Love Call” as his walk up music.

Slim Whitman reference from Mars Attacks. Nice.

I’m with OP. There’s going to need to be an injury or Dominguez is gonna have to go bananas in AAA to come up before September. He’s a huge part of the future but Grisham is the ideal 4th outfielder until someone’s on the IL.

Stanton is currently sitting at 106 OPS+. He’s hardly a stumbling block if Dominguez is hitting well in AAA.

Stanton is hitting just enough to hold his spot. The team’s not run in a vacuum, benching Stanton with that salary may be a bridge too far. He’s got three full years guaranteed after this season. The Marlins money kicks in by 2026, that’s when you may see him benched/fired into the sun…

Stanton is hitting above average by OPS+ and he’s on pace for 30 HRs. He’s makes a ton of money. There’s your block.

They could eventually work out a platoon that’s beneficial to all, but worry about that in July, assuming Dominguez does his part.

Agreed. Also we’d need to jettison Grisham if everyone’s healthy. With championship aspirations I’m not sure they want to dump the only guy on the roster who can play gold glove caliber D anywhere in the outfield.

With my contacts briefly bubbling and causing blurred vision, I thought it said he “begins retirement”

Doubt we’ll see him before July if not August. The Yankees don’t need him at the moment so they’ll bring him along slowly, and they will almost assuredly get “back” service time.

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Padres' All-Star Joe Musgrove Provides Injury Update as Return Nears

Ricardo sandoval | may 15, 2024.

• San Diego Padres

San Diego Padres All-Star starting pitcher Joe Musgrove feels much better as he's recovering from inflammation in his right elbow. In a recent interview with the media, including the San Diego Union-Tribune's Jeff Sanders , Musgrove said he felt good in his recent Monday bullpen session. 

"I feel really good today," Musgrove said. "The stuff was coming out really good yesterday. Didn't spin very much, but we're going to do that tomorrow. I was spinning balls in catch, but we didn't throw any off the mound. Yeah, it went really well."

Musgrove threw a "light" bullpen session on Monday and completed his first since joining the 15-day injured list May 5. Musgrove is eligible to come off the IL on Friday. However, returning on Sunday — when Randy Vásquez would start next — keeps the rest of the rotation on turn. If Musgrove looks excellent in his Wednesday session, he could return in the upcoming series against the National League powerhouse Atlanta Braves. 

Musgrove has had a poor start to the season. In eight starts thus far, he's 3-3 with a 6.37 ERA, a 61 ERA+, and a 1.51 WHIP in 41 innings. The 31-year-old suffered from a shoulder injury last year that ended his season prematurely in July. Combined with a weight room accident in spring training that left him with a broken toe , Musgrove was limited to just 17 starts and 101.1 innings in 2023. 

So far, it's been more of the same on the injury front for Musgrove. Nonetheless, the one-time All-Star is trending in the right direction. This is the right-handed pitcher's fourth season as a Friar. 

RICARDO SANDOVAL

Baseball Enthusiast