Winter-League Baseball -- Winter Ball Helps Rodriguez Discover His Dominican Roots -- Mariner Shortstop Alex Rodriguez Could Have Taken The Winter Off Or Played Baseball Elsewhere, But Opted To Go `Home' To The Dominican Republic Out Of A Deep Desire To Rediscover The Land His Parents Left As Teenagers.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - After playing baseball at every professional level in his first year with the Mariner organization, it would have been easy for Alex Rodriguez to go home and sit.

No way.

For one thing, Rodriguez wanted to continue developing as a ballplayer. And for two months he has done so, as a shortstop for the Escogido Leones, one of five teams in the Dominican league.

And baseball aside, he had a big reason for coming to this country, where the game is more all-the-time than pastime.

Rodriguez had to come home, to the land his mother and father left as teenagers for the United States.

"People used to ask me if I was Dominican and I'd say, `Yeah.' But I had no idea what I was saying," Rodriguez said last week in a quiet moment before his team was to play the LaRomana Asucareros. "Coming here meant more than working on hitting a curve or the backhand play in the hole. I came to find out where I'm from.

"And now I know what it means, and it means a lot, when I say to people, `Yeah, I'm a Dominican.' "

In two months, Rodriguez has developed strong and mixed emotions about his family's native place, where life is largely mere existence, hard and unrelenting.

Away from the handful of first-class hotels and upper-class areas where wrought-iron security surrounds every door, window and yard, the sights, sounds and smells of the Dominican's daily life hit the gut. Everything is old or broken. Some areas smell like the open sewers around them. Goats, donkeys and roosters graze on the side of roads, and you'll frequently there are see bodies of such animals, having been hit by vehicles that roar along the bad roads.

Rodriguez is somewhat shielded from the worst of this, surrounded by family and family friends here. He said three or four are very close.

"Too close," he noted, in mild complaint that an uncle is living with him in a hotel room here in the capital, where Escogido plays its home games. "I tell Mom I'm drinking my milk, there's no need. But she knows this place better than me."

Appreciation of his heritage does not mean Rodriguez will return to this country - which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti - when his contract is up later this month. "I don't know if I could take this again," he said. "It's the life here. It's hard and tiring . . . and, hey, there's people walking around with guns. They tell you not to worry and I haven't seen any shooting or anything, but I guess I'm just used to something way different."

The excellent level of play will not chase him. His performance his been superb in the field, a struggle in the batters' box where he faces big-league-caliber pitching. After a strong start, he has slumped below .200.

"I think I'd be more ready for that in another year, but I have no regrets whatsoever," said Rodriguez, the first pick in the 1993 draft. "I asked for this Dominican experience and I'm here to make the most of it. From Day 1 I wanted to come here for winter ball but I don't know if the Mariners wanted me to."

Jim Beattie, Seattle farm director, hesitated only because the parent club had a spot for Rodriguez in the Arizona Fall League. "We didn't know if Alex would find a place to play in the Dominican," Beattie said. "But since he found a place with Escogido, we thought it would be a great place for him to be challenged and be forced to make adjustments. It's very good baseball, probably the best in winter ball."

Here with Rodriguez are Ramon de los Santos, the Mariners' head scout here who is also the Leones' assistant pitching coach, and Sam Mejias, Seattle's first-base coach, who coaches third for the Leones. They are here to guide him.

"And to see that he worked and got rid of a few habits Lou (Piniella) and Sammy Perlozzo (Seattle infield coach) didn't like," Mejias said. "They wanted him to become aggressive in the field, not to lay back and rely on being better than everyone else like he was in high school. They wanted him to get rid of that little flip throw he showed last year, charge the ball and fire it over."

Rodriguez has worked and played hard, and most important, not grown discouraged.

"He's worked his tail off," de los Santos said. "And the fans see it and have really taken to him. They can be tough here on someone not doing good but they like Alex because they know he is only a kid . . ."

Rodriguez' age - 19 - has been a topic of considerable discussion here.

"He's the first teenager anyone remembers playing an everyday position here," said Manny Castillo, former Mariner third baseman and now a coach for the Licey Tigres.

With due respect to other winter leagues, where lineups or pitching staffs usually have two or three borderline minor-leaguers, the rosters here are packed with major-leaguers and top prospects.

"This is the best baseball you'll find this side of the big leagues," said Casey Parsons, a Wenatchee native who played for Seattle, managed at Tacoma last summer and managed Licey last winter to the Caribbean title (though he was fired last week with Licey in last place).

Art Howe, ex-Houston manager who is with LaRomana for a fourth winter, thinks the brilliance predicted for Rodriguez has shown here.

"Alex is going to be fine, with his talent and his aptitude and the way I've seen him work here," the manager said. "He's struggled to hit but that's to be expected for one so young in this league. With the glove, he's big-league already."

Said Rodriguez, "All I wanted here was not to embarrass myself. I'm really glad I came. I've learned a lot things about myself and my family."

He even learned about his father, who walked out on the family years ago in the United States.

"One of my cousins told me he's in New York City," he said. "I had no idea. . . . I usually never think of him, only of my family in Florida and now my people here."

As proof that he is one of them at heart, he has developed a taste for sugar cane. "Cana," de los Santos said. "Our national treat."

"The first time I ate it I nearly choked," Rodriguez said. "I put a chunk in my mouth, chewed and tried to swallow the whole thing. I didn't know you just suck out the sugar syrup, then spit out the pulp. You know how to eat cana, you're a Dominican."