Baseball in the Bahamas: How Jazz Chisholm, other pros are helping grow the game on the islands

By Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Writers

NASSAU, Bahamas — Every kid wanted to stand near Jazz.

On a typically picturesque Thursday morning in paradise — a friendly sun, a cloudless sky, a slight breeze sending the palm trees into sway — Jazz Chisholm, the supersonic Bahamian second baseman for the Miami Marlins, was the main attraction at the Don’t Blink Home Run Derby Youth Clinic. 

About 60 Bahamian youngsters came out to the ballpark to work on their skills and rub shoulders with the most popular and influential baseball player their nation has ever had.

If you think Chisholm is a big deal stateside, well, it’s a whole different stratosphere of fame down here. After a breakout rookie season for the Marlins, the 23-year-old has become a true celebrity in the Bahamas.

"I was getting recognized a bit two years ago, but now it’s ridiculous," he told FOX Sports after the clinic. "It’s every day. It’s everyone. Now everyone is like, ‘Oh you’re Jazz Chisholm.'"

His eye-popping debut season and trademark blue hair established Chisholm as a recognizable figure among baseball fans — his early-season bomb off Jacob deGrom and his fearless baserunning exploits stand out in particular — and catapulted him to true celebrity status back home. A national icon in the making, Chisholm is now a megaphone of baseball exuberance spreading the gospel of the game to young people in the Bahamas.

"This is the first time I’ve been back in two years," said Chisholm, a wholesome grin on his face, his gold chain shimmering in the tropical sun. "The first time I’ve been home as a big leaguer. A lot has changed. It has changed astronomically. It’s way different now. I look at things differently in every way. Seeing all the kids in town, it’s crazy to see them look up to me."

But the kids don’t just look up to Jazz. They emulate his every move. They smile like him, euro-step like him and swing like him.

"I shed a tear today. I saw some 7-, 8-year-old kids doing my toe-taps over there. I was like, dang, I remember nobody used to toe-tap," Chisholm said. "Seeing the Bahamian kids — they started playing baseball because of me — and they’re swinging like me. It really gets to me, man."

Chisholm is home for the Don’t Blink Home Run Derby, an annual event organized by fellow Bahamian pros Todd Isaacs and Lucius Fox that features major leaguers and top prospects smashing home runs off a beach into the clear, blue ocean. It’s as rad as it sounds.

This year’s edition, set for Sunday afternoon, has been expanded to include a whole week of activities, including a celebrity softball game, a charity golf tournament and a youth clinic for local kids in the Bahamas.

Jazz’s superstardom, the rise of players such as Fox and Isaacs, and the Derby event they’ve created have all played key roles in baseball’s rapid ascent in the Bahamas. In fact, the islands are the fastest-growing baseball nation in the world. 

In the past decade-plus, the number of professional Bahamian players has skyrocketed, from just two pros in 2010 all the way to 22 this past season. The nation of just 385,000 people has embraced the game Bahamian-style, with open arms, with joy and with unrelenting passion. 

But if the Bahamas is a baseball rocket ship, who built it? How exactly did the tiny island nation become one of the most exciting baseball pipelines in the world?

The first Nassau native to reach MLB was Andre Rodgers, an infielder who debuted with the New York Giants in 1957. His claim to fame was becoming the Cubs’ starting shortstop in 1962, when Hall of Famer Ernie Banks moved to first base. Rodgers enjoyed an 11-year career as the inaugural Bahamian major leaguer.

Rodgers’ success at the highest level sparked a wave of Bahamian signees in the ‘60s and ’70s, though very few of them reached the big leagues, and none had a career nearly as long as his.

For nearly 40 years after outfielder Wil Culmer’s final game with Cleveland in 1983, not a single Bahamian-born player appeared in the majors. Not a single one signed to play pro ball, let alone reached the bigs, in the 1990s.

Then, in 2011, a speedy outfielder named Antoan Richardson — better known now as the first-base coach for the San Francisco Giants — debuted for the Atlanta Braves and got his first career hit against some lefty named Clayton Kershaw. Richardson had another signature moment three years later, when he scored on Derek Jeter’s walk-off RBI single:

Although he played in only 22 major-league games, Richardson caught the attention of many young athletes in the Bahamas, such as Fox. 

As a kid, Fox wanted to be an Olympic sprinter like many of his peers who grew up watching their island nation compete frequently on the international stage. But by age 12, Fox's father was insistent that he stay focused on baseball, in which he knew his son could be special. 

Richardson and Albert Cartwright, who played in the minors with Houston and Philadelphia from 2007 to 2014, served as the primary influences for Fox on the baseball field. Fox played high school baseball in Florida before returning home in 2015 and signing with the Giants as an international free agent. 

He might not have realized it at the time, but Fox’s deal with the Giants, which included a $6 million signing bonus, helped jump-start this new era of Bahamian baseball. (Chisholm also signed that summer with the D-backs for a $200K bonus, though he was lesser known at the time.)

The impact of Fox’s signing was twofold. First, it was an emphatic statement to MLB teams that there was legitimate high-end talent to be scouted in the Bahamas. Second, it provided an intriguing alternative path for kids in the Bahamas who wanted to pursue baseball rather than other sports such as track and field or basketball. 

Just as Richardson and Cartwright helped inspire him, Fox has continued to pay it forward. 

"When I came back to the Bahamas [after signing] and seeing all the young guys look up to me and want to work out with me, that was pretty cool," Fox said. "Once I saw that, I knew I had to set a good example for the youth."

While no one has topped Fox’s $6 million bonus since, Bahamian players have continued to receive hefty signing bonuses in the international free-agent market. 

A couple of years after signing Chisholm, the D-backs agreed to a $2.55M deal with outfielder Kristian Robinson. The Angels have been similarly aggressive in pursuing Bahamian players, signing outfielders Trent Deveaux ($1.2M bonus) and D’Shawn Knowles ($800K bonus) in 2017, as well as infielder Kristin Munroe ($400K) in 2020. Switch-hitting infielder Ian Lewis signed with the Marlins for $950K in 2019 and has already made a strong impression on his fellow Bahamian prospects. He might be the next big thing.

And there will be more. If the scene at Thursday’s youth clinic was any indication, there is plenty more talent on the way. To have nearly all the recent Bahamian signees, in addition to a bunch of other big leaguers and prospects from across MLB, playing catch and hitting ground balls to kids of all ages will undoubtedly help grow the game here.

"We have so much raw talent here. There’s so many people on the island that don’t even play baseball that are probably better than all of us," Fox said. "That’s why we describe it as ‘growing’ — it’s going to be special for years to come."

"Honestly, today was the day I realized in the next five to 10 years, we’re gonna have 15 [Bahamians] playing at the same time in the big leagues," added Chisholm, looking out at all the kids playing a pick-up game, many of them emulating his style of play. "I’m really excited for that to happen."

When Fox and Chisholm signed six years ago, such a burgeoning baseball landscape in the Bahamas would have seemed farfetched. It all has happened very quickly, but there’s no slowing down the momentum now.

"This was the dream," Chisholm said. "Honestly. I didn’t see it happening, but I dreamed about it happening." 

Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman, creators of the Twitter account Céspedes Family BBQ, write about all things baseball for FOX Sports.