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Playing FIVE YOUNG NAPLES SUPERSTARS SHAPE THE FUTURE THROUGH HARD WORK BALANCED WITH FUN TIMES By Erika Klein and Yelena Alpert | Photography by Vanessa Rogers
DOMINIC BLANCO “I was born with a baseball bat in my hands,” says Naplesborn Dominic Blanco, who signed with the Seattle Mariners at 18. After three years in Seattle, he played for two more for the Minnesota Twins. He attributes his professional success to his parents, who left Cuba and landed in Naples just before Blanco’s older brother was born. When Blanco was three, his grandfather made him a batter box with a ball dangling from the ceiling on a string, and he would swing for hours. He made the varsity baseball team as a freshman at Gulf Coast High School and got drafted a week after graduation. “I will never forget that feeling,” he says. “I got that day tattooed on my arm.” The next day, he flew to Arizona for training. Now, at 25, his professional baseball career is in the rearview mirror, but not far behind. He’s back in Naples, now at the helm of his own sports agency and a 501(c)(3) charity. Blanco started his own nonprofit foundation in 2019 to inspire kids through art, music, and sports. Blanco taps his entrepreneurial side with the same gusto and dedication he put into baseball. Even as a Little Leaguer with Golden Gate National, Blanco paid attention to his team’s skill. He was always at least two or three years younger than his teammates. “Playing with older, stronger, and faster kids made me a better ball player,” he says. “It forced me to compete.” It is also one of the reasons he feels strongly about community service. Throughout his professional years, Blanco called his agent about local charities that worked with youth sports. “It is important to give back,” says 66
Blanco, who sent his own bats and gloves to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and sports camps in Naples. Blanco also lived in Los Angeles for three years, where he launched the sports agency and his foundation, and extended his professional network. “I still wanted to be involved in the game,” he says. “Sharing my experiences and connections with other athletes at the start of their professional career was the right move.” Home was calling and he came back to the Gulf Coast. “I moved back to gather myself, dig deep, and think of how I want to impact this earth,” he says. Shortly after his return, Blanco recruited Rick and Amy Lademann, strength coaches at Beyond Motion in Naples, who’ve trained some of the world’s top athletes, to host a week-long conditioning camp for professional baseball players at LaPlaya Beach & Golf Resort. Blanco is also working on putting on his second charity golf tournament and fishing tournament next summer to raise funds for local youth sports. Last fall, his organization donated more than 200 units of school supplies to Avalon Elementary School in Naples. With a real estate license under his belt, Blanco is also working on his general contractor’s license. “Real estate is my favorite investment; that’s something I’ll do my whole life,” he says. To unwind, he fishes near Cape Romano. He loves that everything in Naples is 20 minutes away. “I can go from wearing boots and riding a horse in the Estates to driving west and watching the sunset on the beach.” —Yelena Alpert
NAPLES ILLUSTRATED
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