"The strange case of Fausto Carmona morphing into a man named Roberto Hernandez Heredia isn't really strange at all.

Baseball players from Caribbean nations often change their ages and sometimes their names. At least they used to.

After 9/11, the U.S. government began insisting that foreigners entering the country to accept jobs validate their identities with something more than sworn statements.

Indians fans will recall that former starter Bartolo Colon, like Carmona, a native of the Dominican Republic, suddenly aged two years (after he left the Indians). There have been dozens of players whose ages inched upward after the feds began cracking down on the decades-old scam.

The practice was particularly prevalent in the Dominican, where documentation was often lacking and buscones — pseudo agents who steer the careers of anxious teenagers — provided the expertise and the resources to create the magic that turned 18-year-olds into 16-year-olds.

Youth is highly prized in Dominican baseball circles, because major-league franchises operate on the theory that it takes an extra year or two to assimilate disadvantaged, uneducated kids into American culture and teach them the necessary skills to play as professionals.

And so the buscones pointed scouts in the right direction (and still do). They also fed the players, gave money to their families and made certain that their "clients" became the desired age. They also took a piece of the kids' signing bonuses — sometimes 40 to 50 percent — even though teams typically give most Dominican aspirants only a few thousand dollars. The buscones hoped they would hit the jackpot by representing that rare player whose bonus reached six or seven figures.

This is probably the path that was taken by 31-year-old Heredia, nee 28-year-old Carmona, the Tribe starter who was arrested last week as he tried to renew his work visa at the American consulate in Santo Domingo."