Click: Volunteers in Medicine Gala Event

Gay marriage advocates declare victory in NH

First Posted: 3/8/2012 TAMPA, Fla. &amp;#8212; The man who was once heir apparent to run the New York Yankees stood on the suite level at Steinbrenner Field as employees and friends stopped to shake hands and say hello. 
These days, Steve Swindal works with players who hope to become Yankees &amp;#8212; or Red Sox or Cardinals or anywhere else in the big leagues. 
Married to one of George Steinbrenner's daughters, Swindal was a general partner of the team from 1998-06 and chairman of the Yankees' parent company. Steinbrenner designated him as his successor in June 2005. 
Everything changed on Feb. 15, 2007, when Swindal was arrested early in the morning for driving under the influence. His wife, Jennifer, filed for divorce the following month, the Yankees bought out his ownership stake that November and George Steinbrenner turned control of the team over to son Hal Steinbrenner not long after. 
"I'm always going be pulling for the Yankees," Swindal said. "That's never going to go away." 
Now 57, Swindal found his way back into baseball. He helped launch a youth academy in the Dominican Republic, one that has had 40 prospects sign with major league organizations. In a land where Major League Baseball has expressed concern about shady buscones &amp;#8212; combination trainers/scouts/agents/guardians &amp;#8212; Swindal's company has been praised for its treatment of teenage prospects. 
"It's a strange turn," he said. "Life is going to be full of turns and changes. It's how you deal with it that's important. I had the best 10 years of my life with the Yankees, of my professional life. I don't regret a minute of it." 
He was at the ballpark Sunday for the Yankees' spring training home opener to watch his daughter, aspiring Broadway actress Haley Steinbrenner Swindal, sing the national anthem. His son works for the Yankees, in stadium operations in New York. 
Thinner than in his Yankees days, and with a salt-and-pepper goatee, Swindal stood near the elevators on the suite level, wearing a North Carolina cap, for an interview outside the press box doors. Every two minutes someone stopped to say hello and ask how he was doing. 
He formed the company, the International Academy of Professional Baseball, in December 2009 with Abel Guerra, the Yankees' former vice president of international operations; and Hans Hertell, the former U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic. (Hertell was bought out by the other two this year). In exchange for a percentage of any eventual signing bonus, the academy houses, feeds, schools and trains potential players on a complex in Boca Chica that includes a full field and an infield. The company also rents a house in Panama and uses a field across the street, then sends players to the Dominican complex when they are ready. It also employs a scout in Venezuela. 
"Some of these students have never gone to schools or dropped out at the third- or fourth-grade level. We try to give them some life skills," Guerra said, describing how they attend night school during the week and Dominican schools on the weekend. 
Rafael Perez, MLB's director of Dominican operations, calls it "the nicest academy of any agent," saying it's similar to the complex the Yankees had built right across the street. "And they produce a lot of players."

Swindal embarks on new journey