The children of Puerto Rico call baseball superstar Juan Gonzalez their hero. He grew up hitting bottlecaps with a broomstick bat and, at a young age, went on to become major league baseball's home run champion in 1992 and 1993. He spends the off-season visiting Puerto Rican schools to speak to children. After his baseball career ends, he plans a career in social work.

Gonzalez was born in 1969 in Puerto Rico. He was raised in an area called Alto de Cuba--a tough neighborhood where the narrow streets are now filled with crime, abandoned houses, drugs, and poverty. Shopkeepers there remember the young, barefoot Gonzalez playing baseball in those streets. Today Gonzalez deplores the condition of his old barrio (Spanish-speaking neighborhood). When he can, he tries to encourage the children there to escape as he has.

"It makes me feel bad and sad at the same time," he related to Tom...