SAMS MEMORIAL STADIUM in Brownsville, Texas, sits 2 miles from the Mexican border and a world away from the home of Leo Ramos' mother on the other side. It's senior night for the Lopez High School football team, and Leo, a 17-year-old running back/defensive back for the Lobos, stands on the field waiting to be announced, looking up at the crowd. His mother has never seen him play and won't tonight either.

The stands are full. People file back from the concession stand with bags of chips and elote. Family, friends and players' girlfriends have painted paw prints on their cheeks and wear bedazzled T-shirts that say "Seniors 2019" and "Lobos." Leo stands on tiptoes to see into the parking lot over the crowd at the gate. He borrows a cellphone from his coach, Armando Gutierrez, hoping to reach his uncle Juan, who had to work late and is rushing with Leo's aunt Nancy to get to the stadium in time to walk him onto the field.

"It's OK, man. If they don't make it in time, I'll walk you out," Coach Gutierrez says. He knows this stadium and this moment well. He played for a nearby school and had his own name called on senior night in 1996.

Leo's aunt and uncle arrive as the names of the Lobos seniors are being read: Campos ... Garcia ... Mendoza ... Ramirez, and then, Ramos. Together, they walk onto the field with their arms linked, Leo in the center, and pause for photos. Aunt Nancy wears a yellow tank top with the number 28 to match Leo's jersey. Leo smiles as the crowd cheers for him, but as soon as the camera flashes, he dips his head and thinks of his mother. He walks into the locker room alone, stealing a last glance into the stands.

Leo doesn't allow himself the luxury of sentiment, though. This is a fall Friday night in Texas, and there is football to play. He and his teammates gather in the locker room for their last home game huddle.

This is not one of the done-up locker rooms of the bigger programs in Dallas and other parts of the state. There are no team colors painted on the walls, no names and numbers above the lockers. There are no lockers at all. Leo sits on a dark, worn wooden bench-his back to an open cubby into which someone else's initials are carved. Coach Gutierrez takes his place in the center of the circle his players have formed and pauses for a moment.

"What kind of men do you want to be? You know where you're from. You know what people expect of you. You need to go out there and prove everybody wrong every single day." Coach Armando Gutierrez to his team

"What kind of men do you want to be?" he asks. "You know where you're from. You know what people expect of you. You need to go out there and prove everybody wrong every single day." Coach meets the eyes of each player, one by one, his voice rising. "Be proud of who you are. Be proud of who you've become. The next time you talk about tonight, it's gonna be a memory, so make it a good one."

Football in Brownsville is different from in other American towns. The jersey on Leo's back is a symbol of the life and the opportunity he seeks on this side of the border. Leo is the only member of his family to be born in the United States. As an infant, his mother brought him back to Mexico but sent him to Brownsville to live with his aunt and uncle when he was 8 years old. "It was the most difficult decision of my life," she says.

She and Leo's four younger siblings live across the international bridge in Matamoros, in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico, and cannot travel to the United States. Tamaulipas is designated with a Level 4 warning by the U.S. Department of State -- the same warning assigned to travel in Syria and Afghanistan -- due to high rates of violence and kidnapping carried out by drug cartels in the region. Despite these realities, Leo and his teammates try to find a sense of home on each side of the border.

MATAMOROS AND BROWNSVILLE are sister cities, separated naturally by the Rio Grande river and more noticeably by a 20-foot-high steel fence authorized under the Secure Fence Act in 2006 that runs along the river's northern bank.

In downtown Brownsville, Mexican cumbia music plays from the open doorways of small groceries and stores selling silk flowers. Brownsville's population of roughly 180,000 is over 95 percent Latino. The city is poor, the second-poorest in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Many of the people working in these shops cross the bridge each night to go home to Mexico, where the cost of living is much lower.

From the right angle, you can almost forget which side of the border you're on-but widen your view and it becomes clear. Brownsville is a militarized city with unrelenting surveillance. Moving about feels tense. Vehicles and uniforms emblazoned with the logos of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Brownsville Police, Texas State Troopers and the U.S. National Guard patrol the streets night and day.

Leo lives about 2,000 feet from the border at the very southern tip of Texas, in a part of town called La Southmost. People there love their football sons and they love their Dallas Cowboys. After each Cowboys victory, La Southmost is home to La Pitada, a celebration at which hundreds of cars form a makeshift parade and honk their horns through the streets. People in Cowboys jerseys stand on truck beds and hang out of windows waving American flags and Cowboys banners.

There was a time in Brownsville -- at least until the late 1990s -- when people would drop a coin into the turnstile on the international bridge, the southernmost point of entry into Mexico from the U.S., and cross into Matamoros for lunch, shopping or a night out. In high school, Coach Gutierrez and his friends would go to Mexico during sixth-period lunch and be back in time for seventh-period athletics. For the most part, people remember feeling safe visiting Matamoros, a much larger city of nearly 450,000, but that all changed in 2010.

THE GULF CARTEL is one of the oldest organized crime syndicates in Mexico, active since the 1930s. Its main business is drugs. Other crimes-money laundering, extortion, kidnapping, murder-are all tributaries feeding the river of drug trafficking. In February 2010, a faction of the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas, broke ties. A cartel war immediately erupted in Matamoros over control of the territory, and thus began what has become nearly a decade of indescribable and indiscriminate violence throughout Matamoros, including kidnappings, beheadings, torture and murder.

Meanwhile, the violent crime rate in Brownsville is lower than that of Texas as a whole, highlighting the dual reality not only for Leo and his family but for so many border towns and families throughout the Southwest. Their lives are not wholly defined by the violence on the other side of the border, but like seeing a storm cloud build in the distance, it makes for a constant unease.

"You can see [on the news] there was this shooting in Mexico, but the reality is that it's right next door," says Aunt Nancy. "What can I do? How do I stay away from that?"

Leo and his aunt and uncle try to visit his mother, brothers and sister every Saturday, but some weeks it is too dangerous. "Everything just becomes scarier, because anything can hit you out of nowhere over there," Leo says. "I'm more aware of my surroundings. I start looking everywhere."

Each time he leaves his family to come back to the U.S., Leo stares out the car window as the roads become smoother, wondering if they will be safe until the next time he can see them. He knows-they all know-he is working to build what he hopes will be a better life for all of them, but sometimes he feels like he's on the clock. His brother is 14, and Leo worries he soon could be recruited into the cartel.

"I think he says goodbye in a happy manner, like, 'OK, Mom, goodbye. I'll see you next week,'" Nancy says. "Yet he still doesn't want to show that feeling of, 'Oh my god, I'll be gone for one more week, and if I don't come next week, it'll be the following week.' You know, that sadness, but he expresses it with happiness just so that his mother and his siblings don't see that."

LEO IS FAST. He pushes himself on the field as if there is a dare between his will and his body to see which will break first. After back-to-back long carries in a November rivalry game, he leans over a trash can on the sideline waiting to see if he will throw up, then jogs back out to line up for the next play.

Leo likes football for many reasons, not the least of which is the hitting. When so much of your life is shaped by violence that you can't control, the violence you can control feels good.

"The hitting took my fear away from everything that was going on around my family," he says. "[When] I'm playing football, I don't think about anything negative-the situation with my family, them living in Mexico. When I play football, I play it with a passion because I know I'm playing it for them."

Coach Gutierrez knows the feeling well. He's first generation American too -- the eldest son of a single mother who was a migrant worker when he was a child.

"My father left when I was 4, and football was my only way to take out aggression," he says. "I think Leo has that same fire. When he gets on the field, his demeanor changes. He's just focused and locked in. ... Out of everybody else, he'll step up."

Coach Gutierrez played football in Brownsville, went to college at the University of North Texas and coached high-profile high school programs in Dallas and Denton, Texas. After 10 years there, something -- God's plan, an upcoming 40th birthday, the ineffable instinct to return to the places we come from -- brought him home in August 2018.

Early in the season, Lopez High played Donna High and Leo scored a 65-yard touchdown off a punt return with 30 seconds left to put the Lobos up three. It was a play worthy of a highlight reel, until it was called back on an illegal block. The Lobos lost 17-14.

"He came in here ... and he just cried for like 30 minutes," Coach Gutierrez says.

Leo is generally shy. He has a thoughtfulness and gentleness about him, but like most 17-year-olds, his emotions are as tangled and far-reaching as the roots of an oak. Coach Gutierrez knew Leo was crying about more than the play. He knew it wasn't even any one thing in particular, that the weight of living life beyond your years, of straining on emotional tiptoes to hold together a family and live a life worthy of its sacrifice, can catch up with a young man.

"I told him my story too," Coach Gutierrez says. "He sat down and he goes, 'So you understand?' I go, 'Completely.'"

Football is a luxury in Brownsville. It is what comes after work is done and the family is looked after, but it is also the trellis on which Leo has grown up and continues to find his way.

"That play meant a lot to me because of the fact that I had done it for my team," Leo says. "[Coach] was telling me how this sort of thing happens in life. He told me that when you least expect it, somebody is going to take something away from you that you worked so hard for."

AS HE NEARS the Mexican border, Leo wrings his hands and looks out the window. His leg bounces as if all the things on his mind are in desperate need of a way out.

He has made this trip for nearly a decade, but the risk is never lost on him.

His mom and aunt check Facebook every day, sometimes every hour, to see which parts of town are active with shootings and cartel activity. When the violence metastasizes, everyone stays inside. This week, though, it's OK to visit.

Just through the border on the Matamoros side is an area Brownsville locals call the "green zone" -- a few small stores, a pharmacy, a taqueria -- where it is considered safe to visit. Continue on and the buildings fall into deeper disrepair, and foot traffic becomes sparse. The houses are set right against the road, each brightly painted with a small, enclosed patio behind an iron gate.

"It's a lot of pressure knowing that if I mess up, I'm failing them, and I don't want to do that." Leo Ramos on living in Brownsville while his family lives in Matamoros

Because he was born in Texas, Leo is afforded rights and opportunities not available to his mother and siblings. It is hard being away, of course-separated by laws and policies beyond their control-but in a different way, being with them for short stints can be hard too.

Angel greets him at the gate of his mother's home. The two brothers text each other throughout the week-mostly about girls and track or football-but it's been different the past year or so. The distance, both figuratively and literally, has become increasingly difficult to narrow.

"I mean, being away from my family, it really distanced us a lot," Leo says. "And I'm gonna be honest about it, sometimes when I go to Matamoros, I don't spend my time wisely with my family. Sometimes I just go to my room and lock myself inside there. ... I feel guilty about it, because instead of me communicating with my family, I lock myself up for no reason."

Leo has brought a video of his recent track meet. The whole family gathers around the kitchen table and watches him run -- even his two 8-year-old brothers are attentive and quiet. Leo's mother cries quietly, smiles sadly at the screen. She is raising Leo's four siblings alone, making around $7 per day working in a nail salon. She knows these opportunities wouldn't exist for Leo in Matamoros, but it doesn't ease the difficulty of watching her firstborn son live his life without her.

When it comes time to leave, Leo lingers in the doorway. His sister holds him tight around the waist and closes her eyes. It's not long before a familiar heaviness creeps into his thoughts like a fog rolling in.

"It's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure knowing that if I mess up, I'm failing them, and I don't want to do that. I honestly want to succeed, you know? And to prove to them that anything is possible. I'm over here, like, having a good education, having sports without having to pay," he says. "Sometimes I do question myself, like, 'Why me? Why couldn't it be all my other brothers living up here and having a good life?' It's pretty difficult to think about it sometimes."

COACH GUTIERREZ watches from the 30-yard line as the seniors do a lap around the stadium track. Their friends join them, everyone in navy and gold, and together they sing and cheer and take photos, reveling in a moment for which many of them will someday grow nostalgic. The Lobos lost the game on senior night but never gave up against the best team in the district. Leo rushed for a touchdown. There is plenty to be proud of.

Leo and his two best friends lead the seniors as they take their final lap. Theirs is a team of young men, some of whom line up on the international bridge before dawn and cross the border each morning to come to school, some of whom are undocumented and unsure of what comes next for them, some of whom have lost loved ones to the violence in Matamoros, and some of whom have seen family members lured into the cartel. Their stories are different, but each is defined by fences, fears, bridges and marked SUVs.

There is a duality to each of them, as there is to football here in Brownsville. This is their American experience as they navigate what it means to be Mexican-American, or American-Mexican.

After the crowd has thinned, Leo and the same two friends walk out to the 50-yard-line. In the center of the field, the state of Texas is painted in red, white and blue. They take a knee right in the heart of it, and with hands on one another's shoulders, they pray.

"We prayed for better days," he says. "Because all of us go through something every day."

A few months later, Leo walks out onto the field again. This time, he's in a navy blue graduation robe. The stadium lights are on, and the stands are full again. He knows his mother isn't there, but he still looks for her face in the crowd. He takes a seat among his classmates and waits for his name to be called.

Near the end of the ceremony, the Lopez Early College High School class of 2019 turns its tassels, and with that, Leo achieves what his mother hoped he could do when she sent him to Brownsville 10 years ago. Afterward, his aunt and uncle greet him with balloons and hugs.

"I finally made it. That was the moment. I finally made it," Leo says. "I accomplished one of the goals that I told my mom I was going to accomplish, which is to be a senior and I'm going to graduate."

He isn't sure what comes next. He has an offer to run track for Central Methodist University in Missouri, should his latest test scores come back high enough. His mother is conflicted about the possibly of him going so far away, and it weighs on Leo. "There was no happiness in her. She just said a few words and looked at her phone and just got up and walked away," he says about the moment he shared his college prospects.

Leo believes she will come around, however. Now that he's 18, he hopes to legally apply to bring his mother and siblings to the United States so they can be together, even though it will require navigating an intimidating and ever-changing immigration system.

"Every day I tell myself, 'You're gonna do this, and you're gonna do it right. You're not gonna mess up. You've got this opportunity and you're not gonna let it go,'" he says.

He sometimes wonders about what life might be like outside of Brownsville and Matamoros, about opportunities he might find beyond the Rio Grande Valley, but it's hard to look beyond the fence and the river, the gulf that divides and defines the only life his family knows. Even as he looks forward, Leo is drawn home.

"Just to keep making her proud," Leo says. "That's my goal."

E:60 feature producer Jeremy Williams contributed to this story.

Restricted free agent F/C Daniel Theis has agreed to a two-year, $10 million deal to stay with the Boston Celtics, CAA agents Michael Tellem and Aaron Mintz tell ESPN.

Theis will compete for minutes in the frontcourt, including at backup center. Boston lost five-time All-Star Al Horford in free agency, but signed free agent center Enes Kanter to a two-year deal and return 2018 first-round pick Robert Williams.

Theis, 27, has averaged 5.5 points and 3.9 rebounds in his two seasons with the Celtics.

Theis, a four-time German All-Star, played two seasons with the Brose Bamberg of the EuroLeague.

Restricted free-agent forward Dorian Finney-Smith has agreed to a three-year, $12 million deal to re-sign with the Dallas Mavericks, sources told ESPN.

Finney-Smith has developed into a quality role player since joining the Mavericks as an undrafted rookie three years ago. He averaged 7.5 points and 4.8 rebounds in 24.5 minutes per game last season and is one of Dallas' best perimeter defender.

The Mavs still have more than $22 million in salary-cap space and hope to sign Danny Green, according to sources. Green is waiting for two-time title teammate Kawhi Leonard to make his free-agency decision before determining whether he will accept Dallas' offer.

The Athletic first reported Finney-Smith's deal.

The Philadelphia 76ers offered All-Star guard Ben Simmons a five-year, $170 million maximum extension, and the sides are working through contract details toward an eventual agreement, league sources tell ESPN.

Sixers general manager Elton Brand and Simmons' agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, have until mid-October to finalize a rookie extension, but there's a shared expectation a signed agreement will come significantly sooner, league sources said.

Simmons, the 2016 No. 1 overall pick and 2018 NBA Rookie of the Year, is one of the cornerstone stars for the 76ers. His teammates, including All-Star center Joel Embiid (five years, $150 million), Tobias Harris (five years, $180 million) and Al Horford (four years, $109 million) have been secured with long-term deals.

Simmons, 22, averaged 16.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 7.7 assists for the Sixers last season. At 6-foot-10, he has one of the NBA's most unique skill sets as a playmaker and finisher at the rim.

Once again the Philadelphia 76ers have a new look, and once again it looks great on paper. Regardless of what Kawhi Leonard chooses to do in NBA free agency, the Sixers will enter next season as legitimate contenders in the Eastern Conference. Despite losing JJ Redick and Jimmy Butler, the quick acquisitions of Al Horford and Josh Richardson keep the Sixers in the conversation.

Still, the best NBA teams possess both strong offenses and defenses, and Philly is not there yet. Last season the Sixers ranked just 11th in net rating. The offense worked (No. 8 in the NBA), but the defense was just average (No. 14). That's not good enough.

The good news is that both new guys arrive with sterling reputations for getting stops. It's easy to imagine this new group becoming a top-10 defense soon.

During Horford's tenure in Boston, he was the centerpiece of one of the league's most dependable defenses. Out of the 15 NBA bigs who defended at least 2,000 pick-and-roll plays last season, Horford ranked second in efficiency, per Second Spectrum tracking. Opponents scored just 0.93 points per direct pick when Horford was defending the screener. Joel Embiid -- no slouch on defense either -- allowed 0.94.

Meanwhile, with the Miami Heat, Richardson built his brand by playing outstanding perimeter defense. He provides Philly with an active, versatile wing capable of frustrating even the world's best perimeter players. Just ask JJ Redick, or watch Richardson here:

Richardson is a top-notch 3-and-D wing who pairs that elite defense with above-average 3-point shooting. He's no Redick, but Richardson made 36% of his 3s last year, which is right at the league average. However, that 36% is a little misleading.

Drilling down a bit further, it's clear that Richardson is better at some kinds of 3s than others. In Philly, it's likely his 3-point activity will skew toward his strengths and away from his weaknesses.

Last year, Richardson hurt his overall 3-point efficiency by launching a bunch of off-the-dribble 3s. He made just 28% of them. As he moves from Miami's anemic offensive environment (which ranked No. 26 in efficiency last season) to Philly's star-studded lineup, his usage rate will dip and his shot quality will rise.

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Richardson is much better in catch-and-shoot situations than he is off the bounce. Last season, he hit 38% of his catch-and-shoot 3s (69th percentile, per Second Spectrum), and perhaps no young player in the world is as good at creating such shots than Ben Simmons, his new teammate. Last season, Simmons' passes led to 782 3-point shots for his teammates. Nobody in Miami had more than 312 ... and that was Richardson himself, who has developed into a much better playmaker over the course of his career. Unlike Butler, Richardson will be content to play off the ball and stretch the floor, making him an ideal wing alongside Simmons.

Richardson may not be as good as Redick as a shooter, but he's really good at hitting open catch-and-shoot 3s. His shooting percentage jumped to 42.4% (73rd percentile) when his defender was at least 6 feet away. Simmons created 452 such open looks last year, and it's fair to expect Richardson's 3-point activity to skew toward his strengths in Philly, where he'll play alongside higher-usage teammates who command a lot of defensive attention.

While Richardson seems like an ideal player alongside Simmons and Embiid, Horford's fit is a little more concerning. According to Basketball-Reference, Horford spent 92% of his time as a center last season. Philly already has a pretty good center. Can Horford and Embiid play together? In an era defined by smaller and smaller lineups, Philly is making a bet that they can.

It helps that both dudes are versatile two-way players. Horford is light-footed enough to guard smaller guys on defense and skilled enough to spread the floor on offense. He's a much better passer and floor general than Embiid, but it's still fair to question how these giants will space the floor in tandem. At least they'll have some time to experiment and figure it out during the regular season.

Horford doesn't clog up the paint or need to post up to thrive on offense. He's an efficient offensive player who does his best work in the paint and from downtown.

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He's another screener, another passer and another catch-and-shoot threat for head coach Brett Brown to play with on offense. Furthermore, he's an unselfish chameleon who already has demonstrated he'll do what it takes to fit in.

The challenge may be on defense. Will smaller, faster opponents be able to exploit the relative slowness featuring Horford and Embiid? Maybe, but Horford is no ordinary center. If he can effectively defend opposing 4s, Philly should be just fine, especially considering the fleet of help defenders who surround him. When Simmons is locked in, he can help clean up defensive miscues that arise.

And here's the thing: The Horford acquisition enables Brown to stagger his lineups (and his load managements) in ways that consistently will keep at least one great big on the floor. Embiid is likely to miss time, and Horford helps mitigate that. Similarly, the presence of Embiid helps Philly manage the minutes of its brand-new 33-year-old big man. Their combined presence means both can get more nights off while not needing to play more than 30 minutes per game.

Even if Kawhi returns to the Raptors, the East is wide-open. Toronto deserves to be the favorite to start the year, but Philly is right there with the Milwaukee Bucks threatening to dethrone the champs. And if Leonard leaves, the East looks like a two-team race between the Bucks and Sixers.

Last season, the Bucks logged the best record in the league because they paired a great offense with a great defense. With the arrival of Richardson and Horford, the Sixers are in the process of doing the same thing.

Manny Machado's appeal of his one-game suspension was denied, and the San Diego Padres star will serve it Tuesday night by sitting out against the San Francisco Giants, according to multiple reports.

Major League Baseball had issued the punishment to Machado for "aggressively arguing and making contact'' with plate umpire Bill Welke on June 15. Machado was ejected for arguing a called third strike, but denied that he made contact with Welke. His appeal was heard Friday, according to reports.

The MLB Umpires Association took exception to the one-game suspension, saying it was a "slap in the face."

"One game..one single game. What kind of precedent is that setting? It is NOT okay to throw a temper tantrum and physically touch someone of authority, just because you don't agree. Violence in all workplaces is not tolerated. Period," the MLBUA said in a Facebook post.

MLB called the response "inappropriate" in a statement. Machado is batting .276 with 20 home runs and 57 RBIs for the Padres after signing a $300 million, 10-year contract in spring training.

The New York Yankees have placed Luke Voit on the 10-day injured list after the first baseman suffered an abdominal strain during Saturday's game in London.

Voit felt tightness while running the bases in the fifth inning against the Boston Red Sox and was removed from the game.

He described the injury as "a little tightness, but nothing crazy," but did not play in the second game of the series. The IL move is retroactive to Sunday.

Voit, 28, is hitting .280 with 17 home runs and 50 RBIs. He was 4-for-4 with three doubles in Saturday's game prior to the injury.

In related moves, infielder Mike Ford and left-hander Nestor Cortes Jr. were recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, while right-hander Chance Adams was optioned to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

In the tight-knit world of baseball in the Dominican Republic, the legend of the kid spread quickly. He was a switch-hitter with world-class speed, an arm nobody would challenge and the body of a man. Someone called him El Marciano, and the nickname stuck. The Martian, it meant. Because there was no way he was from this world.

The praise for Jasson Dominguez started when he was barely a teenager, and it abounds still. And come this Tuesday, when he is expected to formalize a deal with the New York Yankees that includes a $5 million signing bonus, the 16-year-old center fielder instantaneously will become the most fascinating prospect for the game's most storied team, his debut next year eagerly anticipated by those who haven't seen him as well as by those who have.

That latter group includes general managers, international scouting directors and other front-office personnel -- professional skeptics -- who still can't help but lavish Dominguez with the sort of compliments reserved for the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. Nearly every description begins with a caveat that goes something like: "I know this sounds crazy, but ... "

"But," one general manger who has seen him said, "he's like [Mike] Trout. And Trout wasn't close to this good when he was 16."

"But," an international scouting director who tried and failed to sign Dominguez said, "it's like Mickey Mantle. He's not 6-foot. He's a switch-hitter. He's got crazy power. He's fast as s---. He loves playing."

"But," another general manager said, "he's like -- what's that running back's name? The short, strong one? Maurice Jones-Drew. He's all muscle. But it's not stiff. He's twitchy. Can move in all directions."

Another veteran international scouting director didn't offer a player comparison but did summarize Dominguez simply: "He's the best July 2 player I've ever seen."

July 2 is the annual signing day for international amateurs, and in recent years as technological advances and superior scouting practices have helped better identify the best Latin American players, Dominguez has distinguished himself on raw numbers. He regularly reaches upward of 110 mph exit velocities swinging from both sides of the plate. Only 28 major leaguers have hit a ball 110 mph at least 10 times this season. Dominguez, two scouts said, has clocked around 6.3 seconds in the 60-yard dash. That's faster than Mo Hampton, arguably the best athlete in the MLB draft class of 2019, who decided instead to play cornerback at LSU this year.

This is not like the days of Jackson Melian, a hyped Yankees prospect from Venezuela who never made the major leagues. The conviction is stronger, the signings seen less as gambles and more as investments. It's what invites the comparisons -- that they're not based on physique or some other intangible alone.

"Jasson has a game that's very much like Mike Trout -- except he's a switch-hitter," said Ivan Noboa, Dominguez's trainer in the Dominican Republic. "It's a hard name for me to say, because it's really high expectations for a 16-year-old. But what Jasson is we all know. I know it's a little bit unfair to put them next to each other. It's a heavy weight to carry. But if someone can do it, it's him."

Dominguez arrived at Noboa's academy around his 13th birthday. Even then, he cut a strong figure, different from the wiry boys Noboa had hoped would grow into something. Today, Dominguez is 5-foot-11 and 195 pounds, the exact measurements Mantle was listed at during his playing days.

Every day at Noboa's academy, Dominguez woke up before the sun rose and started his training regimen. He was a natural left-handed hitter whose right-handed stroke caught up. He took reps at shortstop and even catcher, but his speed suited him best in center. At one point, Noboa said, he started to think about where Dominguez stood among those he had trained, including Texas Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara. That answer was clear: the best.

"I've been doing this for a long time," Noboa said, "and it's not just the guys who train with me. He's the greatest talent I've seen."

It's a talent few have seen by design. Unlike the Dominican Prospect League and International Prospect League, organizations that showcase young Latin American players across a multitude of games, Noboa prefers private workouts. Dominguez rarely if ever played in games against teams comprised of non-Noboa-trained players. One international scout said it scared him off of Dominguez.

That didn't stop others. Among those who expressed significant interest in signing Dominguez, according to sources, were the Rangers, Tampa Bay Rays, St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Angels. Each was fighting an uphill battle, considering the history of the Dominguez family.

"Jasson has a game that's very much like Mike Trout -- except he's a switch-hitter. It's a hard name for me to say, because it's really high expectations for a 16-year-old. I know it's a little bit unfair to put them next to each other. It's a heavy weight to carry. But if someone can do it, it's him." Ivan Noboa, Jasson Dominguez's trainer

Before Dominguez was born in February 2003, his father, Felix Dominguez, and his mother, Dorca Gonzalez, were trying to settle on a name. His dad had the perfect one: Jasson, like Jason Giambi. Yes, Felix Dominguez, an enormous Yankees fan, really did name his son after Jason Giambi, and, yes, that second "s" really is superfluous and it's pronounced like Jason.

The Yankees' affinity for Jasson Dominguez can be summed up by his cost. Rarely does a 16-year-old Latin American player demand $5 million, let alone get it. In an unrestricted market, a player like Dominguez, two international directors said, would receive at least a $10 million bonus. The league's collective bargaining agreement limits what teams can spend on international amateur talent. The largest bonus pool is $6.48 million. The Yankees' limit is slightly less than $5.4 million. Essentially, they believe Dominguez is worth more than 90 percent of their pool, which itself says something considering the Yankees' recent success in the Latin American market.

The reality: Every team knows how valuable a high-caliber prospect can be. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. project to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars each. Even though he's only 18, Wander Franco, now the game's No. 1 prospect, could well develop into a $100 million shortstop for the Rays. Before Dominguez, Franco had received the largest signing bonus since fixed pools were instituted: $3.825 million. Dominguez, multiple evaluators said, is that level of player -- "and he might be better," according to one.

Even his most ardent fans acknowledge that because Dominguez is so strong, so fully developed at 16, there might not be room for the sort of growth Tatis experienced as he filled out. Neither that nor the lack of outside game action gave two international scouts pause. What Dominguez possesses now, they said, is plenty.

He can't show it until next year, as 16-year-olds don't play the season they sign their contract. Which means Yankees fans must wait. The baseball world too. The good news is that now they have plenty of time to prepare themselves for something they'll believe only when they see. Orson Welles was right after all. The Martian is coming.

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